A Belgrade court has issued arrest warrants for 14 Western leaders convicted in absentia last year of war crimes over NATO's 1999 air war on Yugoslavia.
The trial was orchestrated by authoritarian nationalist president Mr Slobodan Milosevic just days before he fell in a popular uprising and was replaced by democratic reformers committed to good ties with the West.
In a belated procedural step seven months after the trial, the Belgrade district court formally notified defence lawyers of the 20-year sentences meted out to the 14 Western leaders and issued warrants for their arrest, Beta news agency reported.
NATO bombed Serbian government, military and security police targets as well as bridges and power stations for 78 days to halt Mr Milosevic's bloody purge of separatist ethnic Albanians in Kosovo.
The air strikes led to a withdrawal of Milosevic's security forces from Kosovo in June 1999 but they caused about 500 civilian deaths around the country, according to the New York-based Human Rights Watch group.
One of those leaders convicted by the Belgrade court, British Foreign Secretary Mr Robin Cook, was in the Serbian capital two weeks ago for talks with the ruling reform coalition.
The Belgrade District Court said its notification of the defence was only procedure. Any changes to the verdict, it said, could be made only on appeal by the Supreme Court.