Stambolic news

[Ivo Skoric]

Yugoslavia Police Say Leads Have Dried Up in Probe of Ex-
Leader's Abduction 
8/26/02 2:14AM 
By ALEKSANDAR VASOVIC, Associated Press Writer 
BELGRADE, Yugoslavia (AP) - Two years after a former Serbian 
president was abducted from a residential area of Belgrade, the 
investigation into his disappearance has turned up no leads, officials said 
Sunday.
Ivan Stambolic's family believes he is dead and that Slobodan Milosevic, 
the former Yugoslav president on trial for war crimes, is responsible. 
Stambolic became one of Milosevic's biggest critics after Milosevic 
ousted him in 1987.
Stambolic was abducted Aug. 25, 2000, just a month before elections 
that led to Milosevic's demise. He was driven away in a white van.
"Then it was like he disappeared into a thin air," his son Veljko recently 
said in an interview with The Associated Press.
Police say they searched Belgrade's Kosutnjak neighborhood where he 
was last seen and checked more than 1,000 white vans.
But the efforts have produced "virtually no results," said Gvozden Gagic, 
a ranking official of Serbia's Interior Ministry.
Gagic, in comments Sunday on Belgrade's radio B92, said the only 
witness, a parking lot employee, told police Stambolic's abductors were 
carrying identification cards.
The Stambolic family lawyer, Nikola Barovic, claims Milosevic's 
dreaded Secret Service was responsible for Stambolic's abduction. He 
also says Milosevic cronies still in government have kept the investigation 
from going anywhere.
Veljko Stambolic has given up hope, saying he doubts his father is alive.
In the 1980s, when Stambolic was president of Serbia, the country's 
largest republic, Milosevic was his closest ally and protege. But in 1987, 
Milosevic toppled Stambolic and replaced him both as Serbian president 
and head of the republic's Communist Party.
Stambolic paid him back by becoming one of Milosevic's most 
prominent critics. With moderate views, he was often regarded as the 
most serious threat to his successor.
Milosevic lost the September 2000 elections but claimed he had won. 
Then, before the Constitutional Court finished its debate on the topic, 
Milosevic was ousted in popular unrest on Oct. 5 and is now on trial for 
war crimes, including genocide, at the U.N. war crimes tribunal in The 
Hague, Netherlands.
Last year, Serbia's Interior Ministry offered $140,000 to anyone who 
could help find Stambolic, one of 21 high-profile cases of abduction or 
murder during the Milosevic era that remain unsolved. The victims 
include prominent politicians, journalists, police officers, business and 
underworld figures.
Jiri Dienstbier, a former U.N. envoy for human rights in Yugoslavia and 
former Yugoslav republics said he felt "outrage over inability of Serbian 
authorities to find culprits."
"I hope that the politicians, the Interior Ministry, judges and others will 
pay some attention to these sad reminders of former regime," he said 
Sunday in a letter to Stambolic's wife.
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