Milosevic's banker ousted

Shareholders of the biggest bank in Yugoslavia, Beogradska Banka, have sacked the company's head by a narrow margin at a special meeting.

The bank's long-standing chairwoman, Borka Vucic, who was closely idenfied with the former President Slobodan Milosevic, had been resisting attempts to sack her for several days.

But she indicated that she would not fight the shareholders' vote.

It followed reports that Mrs Vucic had forcibly entered the bank building last Saturday night, accompanied by several armed men, in an apparent attempt to remove important documents.

Correspondents say that as head of Beogradska Banka, Mrs Vucic was in overall control of a vast network of financial interests controlled by the Milosevic regime. On Monday, the German intelligence service, the BND, said Mr Milosevic and his entourage functioned as an organised crime syndicate, with at least one-hundred million dollars in ill-gotten funds stashed in foreign accounts.

From the newsroom of the BBC World Service