BELGRADE, March 15: The body of Slobodan Milosevic arrived in Serbia on Wednesday for private burial in his home town, after two days of behind-the-scenes wrangling by remaining loyalists for a higher-profile funeral in the capital.

A regular Yugoslav airlines flight carrying the remains of Mr Milosevic from Amsterdam touched down at Belgrade airport among snow-covered fields.

His coffin, taped in a black plastic sheath, was draped in the Serbian flag and kissed by senior officials of his Socialist Party, then covered with a wreath of red roses.

A crowd of a few hundred mourners outside the airport placed wreaths on the hearse as it drove slowly through and sobbing women threw roses in its path.

The Socialists plan to display the casket on Thursday in a tent on the sidewalk outside the old federal parliament in the heart of the city — the same sidewalk that in 2000 overflowed with anti-Milosevic protesters yelling: “He’s finished”.

Socialists and the ultranationalist Radical Party initially sought a state funeral for Milosevic, then something akin to one, to create a martyr to their nationalist cause.—Reuters