Milosevic's wife to face corruption trial
Slobodan Milosevic’s wife will go on trial in Belgrade next week on charges of mismanaging state property during the former Yugoslav president’s rule.
Mirjana Markovic, the power behind the throne during Milosevic’s 13 year reign, is accused of illegally providing their grandson’s nanny with a state-owned luxury apartment.
The Belgrade district court said that Markovic will be tried along with 10 other Milosevic-era officials who face similar charges of “inappropriate use of state property” that carry a sentence of up to five years in jail.
The trial will start on March 13, the court said.
Milosevic and his wife wielded enormous power in Yugoslavia for more than a decade before he was swept out of power after a popular revolt in October 2000. The post-Milosevic government later extradited him to the UN war crimes tribunal in The Hague, the Netherlands.
Since then, many of Milosevic’s political and business allies as well as his two children have been accused of crimes.
Markovic, the leader of the neo-communist Yugoslav Left party, lost her parliamentary immunity from prosecution after she failed to become a deputy in the parliament of Serbia and Montenegro, the country that last month succeeded Yugoslavia.
