The Associated Press

BELGRADE, Yugoslavia -- Faced with a U.S. deadline to hand over war crimes suspects, Serbia's government on Wednesday defied a high court ruling and adopted a U.N. tribunal's rules allowing such extraditions.

Yugoslav President Vojislav Kostunica and his nationalist followers have opposed extraditions to the tribunal in The Hague, Netherlands, saying they are illegal and demanding that a special domestic law be adopted to let Serbia hand over suspects.

The U.S. Congress gave Yugoslavia until March 31 to cooperate with the court or risk losing $120 million in financial assistance.

Acting on a similar deadline last year, the Serbian government arrested former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic, who is now on trial in The Hague for atrocities his forces committed in Kosovo, Bosnia and Croatia in the 1990s.

Serbian Justice Minister Vladan Batic said the Serbian government decided to adopt The Hague's statute after months of fruitless legal debates and wrangling between political factions.

The government move indicates that it is ready to arrest and extradite at least some of 15 Serb war crimes suspects living in the republic and sought by The Hague.

Batic said that he doesn't believe March 31 is the final deadline because the Serbian government has fulfilled two other conditions set by the United States -- releasing all ethnic Albanian prisoners from Serbian jails and severing formal ties with the Bosnian Serb military.

Among the suspects sought by the tribunal are the world's top war crimes fugitives, former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic and his wartime military commander, Gen. Ratko Mladic. Mladic is known to be hiding in Serbia; Karadzic's whereabouts are unknown.

Both were indicted together for genocide for the 1995 massacre of about 8,000 Muslim men and boys in Srebrenica, Bosnia, and the three-year military siege and shelling of Sarajevo.