"After a nearly 24-hour attempt by the highest officials of the criminal Nato to downplay the horrible crimes or to blame the Yugoslav authorities for the massacre, and pressured by the facts, the criminals - unprecedented worldwide - finally admitted their crime, albeit unwillingly," a commentary on Serbian TV said.

After accusing Nato of trying to deceive the world with "transparent tricks," the TV said, Nato went on to "justify the crime" as a "mistake".

'Wretched US yes man'

Nato attacks were compared to Nazi-era atrocities

"Tony Blair, the wretched US yes man and English disgrace, yesterday attempted to attribute the entire crime to someone else.

"First he said that the massacre was not carried out by English pilots. Later he said that the Yugoslav authorities were responsible for the bombing of Albanian refugees.

"Falling over his own lies, he then said that the entire issue was still being investigated," the report said.

"In a similar way, more than unconvincingly, both Nato and Pentagon spokesmen tried to minimise the killing of at least 70 civilians.

"Nevertheless, when it became clear that the facts were inexorable and that the world public could not be deceived with transparent tricks this time, they finally admitted the crime.

"When the Nato criminals this afternoon finally admitted that their aircraft bombed the refugee convoy ... they again justified the crime as being a shameful mistake," the commentary continued.

"To them, the killing of more than 70 civilians and the wounding of more than 100 people is once again only a mistake," it said.

Civilian deaths

Clinton: Branded a war criminal

The TV then recalled the killing of "tens of innocent civilians" in other Nato attacks, adding that "people are only numbers, just mere ordinary statistics to these criminals, who kill by pressing a button on a computer and film their crimes with cameras."

Claiming that "such monstrous behaviour was not noted even in the darkest times of Nazism," the TV asked whether the Hague war crimes tribunal "will now finally file charges for the undoubted genocide and crime against humanity" against the "murderers" US President Bill Clinton, UK Prime Minister Tony Blair and others "who are committing the worst crimes against civilians and an entire people on a daily basis".

Attack 'no mistake'

The junior partner in the Yugoslav Government, the Serbian Renewal Movement (SPO), welcomed the Nato statement on the convoy, but not the explanation that it was a "mistake" , the Yugoslav state news agency Tanjug reported.

"Indigent ethnic Albanians murdered by mistake, Serbs murdered by mistake in a passenger train, indigent Serbs murdered in Aleksinac by mistake, Serb and ethnic Albanian civilians murdered by mistake in Pristina," it quoted the SPO as saying.

"Excuse me, [Nato Supreme Commander] General [Wesley] Clark, but take heart and call things by their real name.

"These are not "mistakes" committed by either your pilots or your computers, but are all consequences of a single mistake, which is the aggression on Serbia and the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia," the SPO added.

Blazing fires

The Serbian media continued to devote considerable coverage to the latest Nato attacks on targets in Yugoslavia, in particular the overnight bombing of a petrochemical complex and an oil refinery in Pancevo, near Belgrade.

Serbian TV on Friday showed footage of fires raging out of control against the night sky but it was not clear exactly when the film was taken.

The director of the factory condemned the raid as "the worst war crime", adding that it "fully revealed the Nato aggressor's genocidal intentions", Tanjug reported.

The agency also highlighted the impact on civilians of Nato raids on Subotica, a city in northern Vojvodina, "where the projectiles fired by criminal Nato ... fell on the city's most densely-populated part" and on Vranje in south-eastern Serbia.

"One Nato missile hit the area of the Ribnica village, south of Vranje, severely wounding two civilians sowing crops," the agency said, adding that "a wounded girl" had been "rushed to hospital".

'Human shields'

The "human shield" demonstrations on key Yugoslav bridges have also continued to feature prominently.

Protesters on the Zezelj bridge over the Danube in Novi Sad staged a "mock funeral of the UN charter" to "voice their deepest indignation at the helplessness of the world organisation to carry out its mandate, protect peace and help end the brutal aggression of the US-led Nato air armada against Yugoslavia" , Tanjug reported.

Serbian TV, meanwhile, showed clips of Belgrade residents chanting and singing on the Brankov bridge on Thursday night.

Rugova talks

Ibrahim Rugova: Reportly called for an end to the bombing

The TV also showed footage of talks in Belgrade on Friday between Serbian Republic President Milan Milutinovic and Kosovo Albanian leader Ibrahim Rugova, who jointly called for a halt to the Nato bombing.

The report said the two men "jointly concluded that a cessation of the bombing of our country was a condition without which the political process cannot be realised in full", adding that "both sides expressed a readiness to finish the initiated process ... with direct talks to find a permanent solution to the problem in Kosovo" .

Mr Rugova is reported to have had a meeting earlier in the month with Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic, although Nato officials have questioned the authenticity of the pictures shown of those talks.