Hackers Plant Milosevic Hoax on Daily's Web Page

BELGRADE, Jul 14, 2000 -- (Reuters) Hackers broke into the web site of Yugoslavia's main pro-government daily and posted a fake report saying President Slobodan Milosevic had been killed in a bomb explosion, a source at Politika said on Thursday.

"We noticed it at around 10 p.m. (2000 GMT on Wednesday), and soon afterwards we closed the site to protect it from further intrusions," the source told Reuters.

"The report had a slug, headline and several lines of a subtitle explaining what allegedly happened. But since there was no link to the 'story' no further 'information' was available apart from the front page brief," the source said.

The source said it was the first time hackers had entered Politika's Internet site. The hoax item was put in the place of a Politika story about Milosevic's activities the previous day.

The independent English-language VIP newsletter quoted the hoax as reading: "Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic died from wounds caused by explosion of a device that went off sometime earlier in his bunker in Dedinje."

Dedinje is an exclusive Belgrade suburb where Milosevic's home and the presidential palace are located.

The Politika web site (www.politika.co.yu) was still closed on Thursday morning.

http://www.centraleurope.com/yugoslaviatoday/news.php3?id=178767§ion=default

-- Martin Thompson (mthom1927@aol.com), July 14, 2000