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Serbia denies Mladic arrested

Posted on: Tuesday, 21 February 2006, 13:52 CST

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.

Source: REUTERS

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