The wife of former Yugoslav strongman Slobodan Milosevic has applied for another visa to visit him at the UN war crimes tribunal jail in The Hague, the Dutch Foreign Ministry said Wednesday.
The request had not yet been granted because the ministry needed "additional information on where Mira Markovic plans to stay," spokesman Frank de Bruin said.
De Bruin could not say when Markovic planned to visit her husband or how long the visit would last. "Up till now we have given out three-day visas," he said.
Milosevic's wife made a first visit to her husband in the UN detention centre in Scheveningen, a suburb of The Hague, for three days in July.
The former Yugoslav president was whisked from Belgrade to the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) on June 28. He is charged with war crimes and crimes against humanity over his role in the 1998-1999 Serb crackdown on ethnic Albanians in Serbia's Kosovo province.
According to the Belgrade paper Danas Markovic plans to visit her husband on Friday accompanied by her daughter-in-law and grandson. She wants to stay for four days, Danas said.
If she can obtain a visa for longer Markovic wants to rent an apartment in The Hague, Danas said. The trial against her husband could take years.
De Bruin noted, however, that the EU had imposed a ban on doing business with members of Milosevic's entourage as part of sanctions against Yugoslavia before the change of leadership. Most sanctions were lifted after Milosevic was ousted but they remain in force for the former president's family.
"Anyone who sells or rents a house to her will face legal action," De Bruin said -- THE HAGUE (AFP)
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