The son of ex-Yugoslav leader Slobodan Milosevic said today he would ask Russia for permission to bury his father in Moscow if members of the Milosevic family had no guarantee of their safety in Serbia.
In a rare public appearance, Marko Milosevic told Russia's 1st Channel television that the family wanted him to be buried in Belgrade.
But he said the decision depended on whether the Serbian authorities would guarantee the safety of his mother Mira, who is wanted for criminal offences in the country.
"I just lost my father and do not want to risk my mother," he said.
"I have already asked the Russian authorities, although for now unofficially, whether we could bury him in Moscow ... if the need comes until the conditions in Serbia are right to move his body there."
Marko Milosevic
Serbian President Boris Tadic ruled out a pardon for the two and said a state funeral for Mr Milosevic would be "completely inappropriate".
A statement from Serbia's top military body, the Supreme Defence Council, said the Council would not allow the use of Serbia-Montenegro army units in Milosevic's funeral.
Milosevic's Socialist Party and the ultranationalist Radical Party initially insisted on a state funeral and burial in the "Avenue of Heroes" section of Belgrade's main cemetery.
But Belgrade mayor Nenad Bogdanovic also said he would not authorise burial in that section, which is reserved for distinguished citizens, including assassinated Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic, who extradited Milosevic to The Hague in 2001.
Milosevic's widow Mira Markovic, who visited him at the detention centre until 2003, risks arrest on charges of abusing her power if she returns to Serbia from Russia for the funeral.
Serbian prosecutors have rejected a bid by Milosevic's lawyer to drop the warrant against her because of his death.
A Serbian court dropped all charges against Marko Milosevic last year, a controversial decision made after the main witness against him unexpectedly withdrew evidence that Marko and his thugs had threatened him with a chain-saw.