The UN war crimes tribunal has authorised five members of Slobodan Milosevic's Socialist Party of Serbia (SPS) to visit the former Yugoslav leader at his prison cell in The Hague, a tribunal spokesman said on Wednesday.

The SPS members will visit Milosevic, who remains party president despite his incarceration on "war crimes charges", in two separate groups in mid-August, said Jim Landale, a spokesman for the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY).

But the Dutch authorities indicated they had so far received no visa applications from the SPS party members.

On Sunday, the SPS said in a statement from Belgrade that Milosevic had participated in a party meeting by telephone from his prison cell.

The former Serb strongman has so far only been visited by lawyers Zdenko Tomanovic and Christopher Black, his wife Mira Markovic, and former US attorney general Ramsey Clark, a major critic of the tribunal.

Milosevic was handed over to The Hague court on June 28 to be tried for "war crimes committed during the 1998-99 conflict in the Serbian province of Kosovo."

(Chinadaily.com.cn 08/02/2001)