Serbia denies Mladic arrested

BELGRADE (Reuters) – The Serbian government on Tuesday
denied media reports that top Bosnian Serb war crimes fugitive
Gen. Ratko Mladic had been arrested, but Bosnian and Serbian
sources said he was in custody in Bosnia.

“The news about Ratko Mladic is not correct,” government
spokesman Srdjan Djuric said. “It is a manipulation which
damages the (Serbian) government.”

Djuric was speaking to Reuters by telephone. No official
statement was issued.

Independent Belgrade broadcaster B92 said that in spite of
Djuric’s denial, a number of sources had told its reporters
that the 63-year old general was arrested in Serbia then
transferred to Tuzla in northeastern Bosnia for a flight to The
Hague.

This was the route used to take former Serbian strongman
Slobodan Milosevic to The Hague when he was extradited in 2001
and flown from Belgrade via the U.S. military base Camp Eagle
near Tuzla to the Netherlands.

Morning newspapers on Tuesday speculated that Belgrade
would spirit Mladic into Bosnia after his arrest in order to
counter charges by the Hague war crimes tribunal that he had
been hiding in Serbia for years with government knowledge and
army help.

In the afternoon, Serbia’s state news agency Tanjug and the
main Bosnian Serb agency SRNA said the wartime Bosnian Serb
Army commander had been arrested in Belgrade then taken to
Tuzla.

TWO COUNTS OF GENOCIDE

Mladic was indicted in 1995 for genocide for the 43-month
siege of Sarajevo which claimed 12,000 lives and for
orchestrating the 1995 massacre of some 8,000 Muslims at
Srebrenica, the worst atrocity in Europe since World War Two.

His political boss Radovan Karadzic, indicted on the same
charges, is still at large.

Serbian newspapers have been saying for days that Mladic
would be on a plane to The Hague before the end of February, in
time to avert suspension of European Union association talks
with Belgrade, which would deal a body blow to the government.

The end of February is the deadline for a report by EU
Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn to the EU assessing whether
Serbia is cooperating fully with the U.N. tribunal.

Florence Hartmann, spokeswoman for the U.N. war crimes
prosecutor, said they had no information on the reported
arrest. “These are rumors, we cannot comment on something that
doesn’t exist,” she said.

Without confirming the newspaper reports of an imminent
arrest, Vladeta Jankovic, adviser to Prime Minister Vojislav
Kostunica, said efforts to find Mladic were “in full swing.”

“The government is aware of the consequences,” he told B92
radio. “It might be a decisive moment, not only for the
survival of the government, but for the future prospects of the
state,” he said. Mladic’s handover was “almost a condition of
survival.”

Belgrade is desperate to avoid suspension of Stabilization
and Association pact talks begun last year. They are the first
step to eventual EU membership — Serbia’s top priority — and
Brussels has warned they will stop if Mladic is not arrested.

Reports predicting his imminent arrest or detailing
official efforts to track him down intensify each time Serbia
faces a Western deadline for action, although Serbia constantly
protests that it has no evidence he is even in the country.

Mladic lived openly in Belgrade until the fall of
nationalist strongman Slobodan Milosevic in 2000 undermined his
support. Hague chief prosecutor Carla Del Ponte has repeatedly
charged that he is still protected by hardliners in the Army
and security agencies of Serbia.

Serbian Human Rights Minister Rasim Ljajic said it would be
a good time to extradite Mladic, who is still regarded as a
hero-soldier by staunch nationalists opposed to his arrest.

“The latest polls show 57 percent of citizens are in favor
of this option,” he said.