A top official of former Yugoslav president Mr Slobodan Milosevic's Socialist Party (SPS) said today its members and supporters would prevent any attempt to arrest their boss.
But Mr Branko Ruzic, the head of the SPS Youth Organisation, told a news conference the party hoped no such attempt would be made.
"SPS after all believes in state institutions . . . but if, God forbid, it was to happen, I think a great number of our members and supporters would prevent such an act," he said.
"Slobodan Milosevic is just an ordinary citizen like anybody else and should enjoy all the constitutional and legal rights we are all entitled to," Mr Ruzic said.
During NATO's 1999 air war against Yugoslavia to halt its repression of the ethnic Albanian majority in Kosovo, a UN war crimes tribunal indicted Mr Milosevic and four of his closest aides for alleged atrocities committed there.
Media in Serbia have been speculating on Milosevic's possible arrest since he was ousted in a popular revolt last October. Today the English-language V.I.P.newsletter cited police sources as saying it could happen next week.
Milosevic's successor, moderate nationalist President Mr Vojislav Kostunica, has repeatedly said he is against the extradition and wants Milosevic to be tried at home for crimes he committed against the Serbs.
But the international community is pressing Yugoslavia to hand over Milosevic to the tribunal and the US Congress has granted aid to the country on condition it co-operates with the tribunal from April. It did not specify whether that meant Mr Milosevic's extradition.