THE HAGUE - Slobodan Milosevic was sent reports cataloguing Serb human rights abuses against Kosovo Albanians by post, fax and e-mail, the ex-Yugoslav president’s trial heard yesterday. As UN prosecutors sought to show Milosevic had known or must have known of crimes that his forces committed in the south Serbian province, a human rights activist told of the horrors he witnessed in Kosovo and the reports he helped compile on them. “I know for a fact that all our reports were sent to the accused... I personally remember adding his e-mail address to the e-mail list: slobodan.milosevic@gov.yu,” said Fred Abrahams, a former researcher for Human Rights Watch (HRW). (Reuters)

ANKARA - Turkish paramilitary police yesterday detained 232 suspected illegal migrants who were preparing to sneak into Greece by boat, a report said. Acting on a tip-off, paramilitary police in the Mediterranean town of Marmaris also detained 11 Turks suspected of helping to smuggle the migrants, the Anatolia news agency reported. The migrants were mainly Turkish citizens, but also included Iranians, Iraqis and Palestinians, the agency said. The Greek island of Rhodes is only about 50 kilometers (30 miles) off the shore of Marmaris. (AP)

Bosnian police yesterday raided the offices of a Saudi-based charity in the central town of Travnik in an operation officials said was part of the effort to fight terrorism. Interior Minister Ramo Maslesa told reporters that police raided the offices of the Al-Haramain charity in Travnik, located 70 kilometers (45 miles) northwest of Sarajevo. “The operation is part of the fight against terrorism and efforts to cut financial flows to organizations that sponsor terrorism,” said Maslesa, a minister in the Muslim-Croat entity of Bosnia. The raid was ordered by the federation’s supreme court, which has jurisdiction over terrorism-related cases. (AFP)

Two small bombs exploded in Turkey’s biggest city, Istanbul, yesterday, but there were no reports of injuries, the Anatolia news agency said. The first bomb, placed in a garbage can, exploded in a park in the Besiktas district on the European side of the city, the report said. The second explosion took place in a public square in front of the historic Sultanahmet Mosque, an area frequently visited by tourists which is also in the European quarter. The bombs were designed to cause little damage and maximum noise, the agency said. There was no immediate police statement on who could be responsible for the blasts. (AFP)

Romanian President Ion Iliescu said yesterday that the state was unable to force the restitution of Catholic Church property seized by the Communists. Iliescu was responding to a request by Pope John Paul II on Saturday for Romania to hand back Eastern Rite Catholic churches, confiscated in 1948 when the Communists came to power and banned the Eastern Rite because its believers professed loyalty to a foreign power — the pope. “The state cannot interfere in restituting churches to the Catholic Church,” said Iliescu, adding that handing back Catholic property “is a bit more complicated because the state cannot interfere in the church hierarchy.” (AP)

A Slav-Macedonian shepherd who strayed across the border of the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM) died after falling down a canyon, Greek police said yesterday. The man, identified as 37-year-old Georgi Rizov, was found late Sunday at the foot of the 1,880-meter-high range that straddles Greece, Bulgaria and FYROM. (AP)