U.N. Seeks Serb Wartime Commander

19/05/2001| IslamWeb

UNITED NATIONS (AP) - The U.N. chief war crimes prosecutor accused the Yugoslav government Tuesday of harboring the Bosnian Serbs' wartime commander who has been indicted for genocide.
Carla del Ponte said Gen. Ratko Mladic was living in Belgrade and the Yugoslav army was shielding him from both national and international justice with the government's consent.
She also accused authorities in Republika Srbska, the Serb-controlled half of Bosnia, of knowing the whereabouts of Bosnian Serb wartime leader Radovan Karadzic.
``I think that the victims and survivors of the Bosnian conflict deserve that a real effort be made toward the arrest of Karadzic and Mladic,'' she said.
In an address to the U.N. Security Council, del Ponte said the continuing freedom of Bosnia's two top war crimes suspects ``is an affront to the authority of this council and mocks the entire process of international criminal justice.''
She urged the international community to put pressure on Yugoslavia to hand over Mladic and on the Republika Srbska and NATO to arrest Karadzic.
Speaking to reporters later, she said the tribunal knows ``an address of Mladic in Belgrade,'' the capital, where he is being guarded by the Yugoslav army.
Del Ponte accused the government of President Vojislav Kostunica of failing to move on adoption of a law the president claimed was needed before Yugoslavia could cooperate with the tribunal.
Both Karadzic and Mladic have been hiding since 1996 when they were indicted for genocide committed during the 1992-95 Bosnian war.
The U.N. prosecutor praised authorities in Serbian - one of two Yugoslav republics - for transferring former President Slobodan Milosevic to the tribunal for prosecution.
The U.N. prosecutor praised Yugoslav authorities for transferring former President Slobodan Milosevic to the tribunal for prosecution.