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Noose tightens for Serb fugitive Mladic: paper

Posted on: Tuesday, 13 December 2005, 10:21 CST

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.

Source: REUTERS

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