Noose tightens for Serb fugitive Mladic: paper

BELGRADE (Reuters) – Belgrade’s highest circulation daily,
Vecernje Novosti, quoted government sources on Tuesday as
saying top war crimes fugitive Ratko Mladic would be in custody
at the U.N. tribunal in The Hague by the end of the year.

“The Hague tribunal will have reason to celebrate because
Mladic’s extradition can now be measured in days,” the paper
quoted the sources as saying. He will be in Scheveningen prison
by the New Year, it added.

Serbian Interior Minister Dragan Jocic denied reports that
police knew where Mladic was and would be arrested by year end,
calling them speculation, but he said the sooner Mladic was
arrested and extradited the better, radio B92 radio said.

The Novosti report referred to the arrest last Thursday of
Croatian war crimes suspect General Ante Gotovina, who was one
of the three most wanted by the United Nations still at large,
with General Mladic, the Bosnian Serb wartime military chief
and his then political leader, Radovan Karadzic.

Gotovina’s arrest won praise for Croatia and raised the
pressure on Serbia to show it too was cooperating with the
tribunal. Diplomatic sources say only the arrest of Mladic or
Karadzic can convince the West that Belgrade is sincere.

Mladic and Karadzic are indicted for the 1995 Srebrenica
massacre of 8,000 Muslims and for the siege of Sarajevo, which
claimed over 10,000 lives during the 1992-95 Bosnia war.

Failure to bring them to justice threatens to stall efforts
by Serbia and its smaller sister republic, Montenegro, to join
the European Union and NATO.

Diplomatic sources say Belgrade should not count on wearing
down Western resolve in the hope that a desire to embrace the
Balkans will eventually override the demand for their arrest.

Anxious to display cooperation one day after Gotovina was
taken in, Belgrade produced seven pages of military files that
were missing from the copy handed over earlier to U.N.
prosecutor Carla del Ponte.

Novosti quoted its sources as saying “the general has
already been located and the arrest of Gotovina and handover of
missing files are just a prelude to what will happen in the
coming days.”

The paper said, however, that Mladic might not be in
custody before del Ponte gives her annual report to the U.N.
Security Council on December 15, assessing cooperation by the
former Yugoslav states on war crimes of the 1990s.

Every report by del Ponte to the United Nations is preceded
by media speculation about the net closing in on Mladic or
other fugitives. So far none of the predictions has come about
in any tangible way.

Serbian Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica told del Ponte
during a visit last week that Serbia had already done a lot to
meet it obligations and would fulfil them. Serbia has handed
over 13 suspects to the tribunal in the past year.