Reuters - June 29th, 2006

BELGRADE (Reuters) - The late Serb leader Slobodan Milosevic ordered the murder of communist-era Serb President Ivan Stambolic, whom he saw as a threat to his hold on power, Serbia's Supreme Court has found.

The August 2000 killing was carried out by eight secret policemen, who were found guilty last year and also convicted of the attempted murder earlier in 2000 of then-opposition leader Vuk Draskovic, who is now Serbia's foreign minister.

``The primary court defined and showed, and the Supreme Court also accepts, that Slobodan Milosevic gave an order for the murder of Stambolic and Draskovic as his political opponents,'' the Supreme Court said in a finding dismissing an appeal by the police officers.

``This has been defined through statements of indictees ... and witnesses,'' it added.

Serbia's president in the former Yugoslav federation until he was ousted in 1987 by his protege Milosevic, Stambolic was abducted while jogging and shot in the head.

His body was thrown into a lime pit in woods in northern Serbia. The remains were found in 2003 during a crackdown on Milosevic-era paramilitaries and mafia bosses, following the assassination of reformist Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic.

Milosevic, who died in detention in March while on trial for war crimes at the Hague tribunal, was never formally indicted, far less tried, for the murder of Stambolic by any court.

He lost elections to the reformers in September 2000 and was ousted in a popular uprising a month later. The indictment in the case said Milosevic saw Stambolic and Draskovic as threats to his ``future authority and political power.''

Milosevic had denied involvement but declined to offer testimony in the Belgrade trial.

The last years of the autocrat's 13-year rule were marked by killings of public figures by loyalist hitmen such as Milorad ``Legija'' Ulemek, chief of the now disbanded special police.

Ulemek was given a maximum sentence of 40 years in prison for his role in the murder of Stambolic.

He is also prime suspect in the assassination of Djindjic.

Italian police have arrested at least 45 people in a major anti-Mafia crackdown in Palermo, Sicily.

A senior prosecutor, Piero Grasso, said all the suspects had been charged with Mafia association and extortion.

The operation, involving around 500 police officers, included the arrests of 13 alleged Mafia family leaders.

Investigators say the arrests follow leads uncovered after the arrest in April of former Mafia boss Bernardo Provenzano, after 40 years on the run.

Some of the evidence also involved numerous secretly recorded conversations between alleged Mafia bosses, the investigators said.

Mr Grasso declared after the arrests: "Cosa Nostra is down on its knees."

He said they had uncovered evidence "linking Mafia cells with businessmen and politicians", including candidates in recent elections.

Among the key suspects arrested on Tuesday was Antonino Cina, believed to have been the doctor of the previous boss, Salvatore Riina, who was arrested in 1993.

Another was Antonino Rotolo, who was under house arrest but regularly met key Mafia figures and was believed to direct many of the Cosa Nostra's activities in Palermo.

This is an unprecedented success for Mafia investigators and has undoubtedly dealt a severe blow to the Cosa Nostra's operations, our correspondent says.

Full story here.

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (Reuters) - An Argentine court on Tuesday began the first trial in 20 years of a former member of the security forces on charges linked to the 1976-83 dictatorship's ``dirty war'' against opponents.

Retired police official Miguel Etchecolatz, 76, is charged with forced disappearances, torture and homicide, part of what rights groups say were 30,000 deaths during the military regime.

He is the first former officer to be tried since the Supreme Court struck down amnesty laws last year. The courtroom was packed with dozens of human rights activists, including mothers of disappeared people wearing their trademark white headscarves.

Etchecolatz sat handling rosary beads as he listened to a judge read the charge situation. I won't go into the rights and wrongs, that is for the judge to decide,'' defense attorney Luis Eduardo Boffi Carri Perez said.

GELSENKIRCHEN, Germany - Maxi Rodriguez scored two goals and substitute Lionel Messi added another in the 88th minute, leading Argentina to a 6-0 victory over Serbia-Montenegro in Group C on Friday.

Esteban Cambiasso also scored in the first half, while Hernan Crespo made it 4-0 in the 78th and Carlos Tevez added another minutes later. Messi finished off the scoring with his first World Cup goal.

It was the biggest rout in this year's World Cup.

"This was an incredible performance," Rodriguez said.

The victory meant two-time champion Argentina, which opened with a 2-1 victory over Ivory Coast, would reach the second round if the Netherlands beats or draws with the Ivorians later Friday. Serbia has been eliminated.

Another screaming serenade, with Diego Maradona swirling a blue-and-white jersey above his head and joining in, also rang out over and over: "Vamos a salir campeones, como en '86," or "We're going to be champions, just like in '86."

Full story here.

Editor's commentary: Ratko Mladic was very disappointed after the game but he had an excuse that there were too many war criminals generals from Argentina loose while all Serb generals war criminals are behind bars except himself. One man doesn't make a team after all. Kostunica's political advisor Aleksandar Simic has different opinion. Unofficially he thinks that 6:0 is great victory for country that still exists only in his schizophrenic mind. According to his words, this is the second most important victory for FR Yugoslavia after Milosevic's victory over NATO troops in Kosovo 1999. His opinion is that Yugoslav team is the best in the world and if we consider international conspiracy against Serbs, global warming and high oil prices then 6:0 defeat is acceptable. It could have been much worse like 10:0 defeat or someone could have been seriously injured. His last comment was about Kosovo which he believes will become once again province of Serbia.

PARIS (AP) -- France's highest court upheld George Soros' conviction for insider trading Wednesday in a case dating back nearly 20 years, and the billionaire investor vowed to fight the ruling at the European Court of Human Rights.

The Court of Cassation upheld the 75-year-old American financier's conviction for buying and selling Societe Generale shares in 1988 after receiving information about a planned corporate raid on the bank. Apart from this case, Soros' record is unblemished after five decades in finance.

Lawyer Ron Soffer said Soros planned to take the case to the European Court of Human Rights, saying that the length of the proceedings prevented his client from having a fair trial.

''The investigation started in 1989,'' he said. ''The appeals trial occurred in 2004. How can you call witnesses and ask them about what happened in 1988?''

Soffer also pointed out that France's stock market regulatory authority investigated the matter separately and concluded that Soros did not violate the law or any ethical rules.

French authorities have not yet determined what fine Soros will pay.

In a March 2005 ruling, a French appeals court confirmed a fine of euro2.2 million set by a lower court for the illegal purchase of 95,000 shares in Societe Generale. The Court of Cassation ruled that the fine would be adjusted to reflect Soros' profits, and it ordered the case returned to the appeals court to clarify the amount.

The Hungarian-born businessman has acknowledged that he was told about a Paris financier's plans to take over Societe Generale in late 1988 and began independently acquiring shares in the bank just days later.

But he denied that knowledge of the raid had amounted to insider information or influenced his transactions -- which he said were part of a broader, documented strategy of investing in newly privatized French companies. Soros' lawyer said he cooperated with the case from the beginning.

Soros' spokesman, Michael Vachon, called the decision ''an absurd miscarriage of justice'' and said Soros was confident he would be cleared by the European court.

''As he has from the beginning, George Soros maintains that he engaged in no illegal or unethical conduct,'' Vachon said in a statement.

Soros, who emigrated to the United States in 1956 and set up Soros Fund Management 17 years later, has billions of dollars under management in his Quantum Fund.

He remains the only person convicted in the Societe Generale affair. Two others, Samir Traboulsi and Jean-Charles Naouri, were acquitted.

At an appeals hearing in 2005, Soros told the court his insider trading conviction had been a ''gift to my enemies'' in the United States and elsewhere. ''My reputation is at stake,'' he said.

Soros has often drawn criticism for speculating heavily on the collapse of fragile currencies. In 2004 he also angered many conservatives in the United States by pumping US$27 million into election campaigns to try to unseat President George W. Bush.

CHISINAU, Moldova (AP) -- About 150 former political prisoners gathered Tuesday in the Moldovan capital's main train station to mark 65 years since the beginning of Stalinist deportations to remote areas of the former Soviet Union.

They called on Moldova's government to return property confiscated by the Soviet regime.

On June 13, 1941, the Soviet Union, which had occupied the former Romanian province a year earlier, loaded 22,600 Moldovans on cargo trains bound for Siberia, where the deportees were used for forced labor.

''Loaded in cattle cars, in inhumane conditions, most of the deportees were sent to the cold lands of Siberia and never returned home,'' said Valentina Sturza, a former deportee who heads the Association of Former Political Prisoners.

Participants held a traditional Orthodox religious service and lit candles for the victims of the deportations.

Two other waves of deportations were carried out in 1949 and 1951, with another 40,000 Moldovans sent to Siberia and what is now Kazakhstan.

Many of those deported were teachers, bureaucrats, former soldiers in the Romanian army or peasants, who were branded ''enemies of the people'' by the Stalinist regime and considered a hindrance to the Sovietization of Moldova.

''I was arrested the next day after my wedding,'' said Ion Ciornei, who was deported in 1949 at the age of 19 with his new wife and his parents, as they were deemed ''too rich.''

''We were hard-working farmers and had a few acres of land and three houses,'' he said. Ciornei returned to Moldova in 1961, but moved to Chisinau as he was banned from entering his village.

''Unfortunately, to this day we are not given justice, and our confiscated properties have not been returned,'' he said.

The current pro-Western Communist government has drafted legislation to return confiscated property, under pressure from Europe's top human rights organization, the Council of Europe.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Cuban government cut off electricity to the U.S. diplomatic mission in Havana a week ago, and U.S. requests for power to be restored have gone unanswered, the State Department said Monday.

The facility has been operating with generator power.

Work at the mission continues, including interviews of refugees and outreach programs for the Cuban people, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said.

''I would just say that the bullying tactics of the Castro regime aren't going to work,'' he added.

He said Cuban authorities also reduce the availability of water to the mission from time to time.

McCormack said he suspects that the decision to cut the power was in response to efforts by the mission to provide information to the Cuban people.

''That, of course, is not something that the Castro regime takes kindly to,'' he said.

In January, President Fidel Castro complained about use of the U.S. mission to carry human rights messages to passersby on outdoor electronic signs.

Castro called the signs provocations.

LEIPZIG, Germany - The orange fans ruled the stands, and Dutch winger Arjen Robben reigned on the field.

The Netherlands relied on the speed of Robben for the only goal in an opening 1-0 win over Serbia-Montenegro on Sunday. The victory tied the Dutch with Argentina in Group C, considered to be the toughest of the first round.

Instead of using the counterattack as it promised, Serbia-Montenegro was caught by it. In the 18th minute, Mark van Bommel sent a long, high pass to Robin van Persie near midfield, and the winger delicately lobbed it over the defense toward Robben.

No one could match Robben's quickness, and despite some desperate tugging at his shirt, the Chelsea player coolly slipped the ball under Serbia goalkeeper Dragoslav Jevric on a breakaway.

"I was lucky he was on our side today," Netherlands coach Marco van Basten said. "We always create a lot of chances, but not a lot of goals."

It was all the Dutch fans needed to start a party, and half the crowd at the 43,000-capacity Zentral Stadion was filled with orange, the color of the Dutch team's shirts. The celebrations lasted the rest of the game — and certainly would go deep into the evening.

The Netherlands won a 1-0 World Cup game for the first time.

Full story here.

Editor's commentary: Justice prevails this time but what will happen on Friday when war criminals play against war criminals? Argentinean generals against Ratko Mladic. The best place for that match would be Nuremberg so that all of them can be tried after the match and executed.

BELGRADE, Serbia (AP) -- Serbian lawmakers proclaimed their Balkan republic a sovereign state Monday after tiny Montenegro decided to split from a union and dissolve the remnants of what was once Yugoslavia.

The 126 lawmakers unanimously acknowledged that their state is the heir to the union of Serbia-Montenegro -- the last shred of what was once a six-member Yugoslav federation. Parliament has 250 deputies, but the opposition boycotted the vote, walking out just before the balloting.

The walkout briefly left the ruling coalition without the necessary majority, and triggered a break in the session.

The session later resumed, but the slim majority of votes in favor of the government-backed declaration -- even though it was just a formality -- signaled the weakness of Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica's Cabinet.

''Serbia, as the legal heir to the state union, must formally take over, or inherit, what it has created,'' parliament speaker Predrag Markovic said.

Serbia, as the union's legal successor, inherits membership in the United Nations and other international organizations.

The assembly instructed all state institutions to complete the process for Serbia's statehood within the next 45 days, including assuming the duties and responsibilities previously in the hands of the federal administration. Minutes after the vote, the Serbia-Montenegro flags were removed from the parliament building.

Neither Kostunica nor Serbian President Boris Tadic attended the session in an apparent bid to downplay the fact that Serbia became independent by default when Montenegro declared its own independence following a May 21 referendum.

Still, some deputies praised Serbia re-establishing its statehood after 88 years in the Balkan union.

''We will restore Serbia's glory,'' said Miloljub Albijanic, from the ruling G17 Plus party. ''Long live independent Serbia.''

But nationalist leader Tomislav Nikolic felt less proud.

''This is a sad day in the history of Serbia,'' he said. ''Something is happening in Serbia against Serbia's will.''

Montenegro's declaration of independence Saturday set in motion the process of dividing the joint state's armed forces, diplomatic missions, common assets and responsibilities.

Serbia and Montenegro were the only two former Yugoslav republics that stayed together after the violent disintegration of the Balkan federation in the 1990s.

Although the two nations share a common language and culture, as well as close historic ties, their relations cooled over recent years.

In the early 1990s, Slovenia, Croatia and Bosnia also split from the Serb-led federation, triggering a series of bloody wars. Serbia's southern, ethnic Albanian-dominated province of Kosovo also hopes to gain independence at ongoing U.N.-brokered talks.

Meanwhile, Montenegro's President Filip Vujanovic sent a letter to U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan asking that his newly proclaimed state be admitted as a new member in the world body.

On Sunday, the Adriatic republic asked its neighbors, European Union states and permanent members of the U.N. Security Council to officially recognize it and establish diplomatic relations with its government.

PODGORICA, Serbia-Montenegro (AP) -- Montenegro's parliament declared independence for the tiny Balkan republic Saturday, forming a new European state and dissolving what was left of the former Yugoslavia.

The assembly adopted a declaration of independence, verifying the results of a May 21 referendum in which Montenegrins supported a split from Serbia by a slim margin. The document envisages Montenegro as a ''multiethnic, multicultural and multireligious society ... based on the rule of law and market economy.''

After the assembly meeting, authorities raised a red-and-gold Montenegrin flag over the parliament building and played the ancient Montenegrin anthem -- ''Oh, The Bright May Dawn'' -- as fireworks exploded in the sky.

The declaration says Montenegro's strategic national goal is integration into the European Union and NATO, and the new country will immediately apply for admission into the United Nations and other international organizations.

The independent Montenegro ''expresses special interest and full readiness'' to ''build good and friendly relations with Serbia,'' the declaration added.

No Serbian officials were at the independence ceremonies after conservative Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica refused to officially congratulate Montenegro's pro-independence leaders on the referendum results.

But, in a message issued by the office of Serbian President Boris Tadic, the pro-democracy leader wished the people of Montenegro ''peace, stability and overall prosperity'' on their way to European integration.

''On that road, as always in our history, Serbia will be the closest friend,'' Tadic said. ''I am in favor of preserving family, historic, cultural, economic and political ties, because they present an unbreakable bond between our two countries.''

The proclamation formally ended the Serbia-Montenegro union, the last shred of what was once Yugoslavia, following years of crisis in the Balkans that began when the federation of six republics disintegrated in violence in the 1990s.

Unionist parties opposed to the split with Serbia boycotted the parliament session.

Serbia opposed previous declarations of independence by Slovenia, Croatia and Bosnia, triggering nearly a decade of wars.

Montenegro was an independent kingdom in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, but it abandoned its statehood to join a new Serb-led Balkan union in 1918.

Montenegro, with 620,000 people, was the only republic to stay with Serbia, but it gradually edged toward independence during the autocratic rule of former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic, who died earlier this year while on trial at the U.N. war crimes tribunal for his part in the bloody breakup of Yugoslavia.

BELGRADE (Reuters) - A protected witness in the trial for the March 2003 assassination of Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic was found murdered on Saturday, police said.

His charred body with wrists handcuffed behind its back was found beside a highway to Belgrade, the state news agency Tanjug quoted police as saying.

He was identified by his family as Zoran ``Vuk'' Vukojevic.

Police looking for the killers blocked the main bus station and searched cars crossing Belgrade's two main bridges over the Sava river, snarling Saturday evening traffic.

Djindjic was shot dead by a sniper on March 12, 2003 while entering his Belgrade office. Crime bosses linked to the secret police of the era of late Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic are charged with his murder.

Vukojevic was a key member of the mafia-style 'Zemun Gang' alleged to be behind the assassination. As an insider he had given valuable testimony.

Thirteen people are indicted for Djindjic's murder, six of whom are still at large. The trial started at the end of 2003 but has been stalled by technicalities and the killing of another witness.

It was not immediately clear how Vukojevic's death would affect the trial, which includes two other protected witnesses.

At the time of his death, Djindjic was moving against organized crime gangs that thrived in the 1990s.

The suspected mastermind, former special police commander Milorad Lukovic, denies all charges as does the alleged sniper.