Serbian president says Belgrade must hand over Mladic

10/04/2006

All obstacles on the path to EU membership must be removed, including the war crimes co-operation issue, Serbian President Boris Tadic said on Sunday.

(UPI, AP - 09/04/06; AFP - 08/04/06; Reuters, Irish Times, AP, RFE/RL, B92, Institute for War and peace Reporting - 07/04/06)

"Membership in the EU is our strategic goal. All obstacles on that path must be removed, and this means we have to co-operate fully with the UN tribunal in The Hague," said President Boris Tadic. [Getty Images]

Serbian President Boris Tadic said on Sunday (9 April) that Belgrade must deliver war crimes fugitive Ratko Mladic to the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) by the end of this month, to remain on track for building closer ties with the EU.

"Membership in the EU is our strategic goal," the Serbian leader was quoted as saying in an interview with Austria's Kurrir daily. "All obstacles on that path must be removed, and this means we have to co-operate fully with the UN tribunal in The Hague."

The EU warned last month that it could suspend talks on a Stabilisation and Association Agreement (SAA) with Belgrade if it failed to hand over Mladic before the next round of the negotiations on 5 April. But after a meeting with chief UN prosecutor Carla del Ponte, following her visit to Serbia on 29 March, Brussels extended the deadline for the former Bosnian Serb military commander's extradition to The Hague and decided to go ahead with the talks.

EU Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn said del Ponte had reported that there was "progress in Serbia-Montenegro's co-operation with the ICTY" and that Serbian Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica had promised that Mladic would be located and handed over "without delay".

While suggesting Sunday that Serbian authorities remain unaware of the fugitive's whereabouts, Tadic said he was encouraging Kostunica to act on his promise to the ICTY and the EU, and meet the April deadline, the UPI reported.

Mladic has been on the run since 1995, when the ICTY first charged him with war crimes for his alleged involvement in atrocities committed during the 1992-1995 conflict in Bosnia and Herzegovina. He faces two charges of genocide over the 1995 Srebrenica massacre of 8,000 Muslim men and boys and the 43-month siege of Sarajevo, which left more than 10,000 people dead.

Serbian authorities have admitted that Mladic lived in Belgrade under military protection until mid-2002, when he disappeared. The fugitive, who received a pension from Belgrade until last December, is widely believed to be hiding in Serbia. A secret intelligence report earlier this year revealed more than 50 individuals had been helping him evade capture. A number of Mladic's former associates have since been arrested and questioned.

Last week, the Belgrade-based daily Blic reported that Serbian security agents had searched the houses of Mladic's relatives and taken some of them in for interrogation. A company owned by son Darko Mladic was checked by tax police and inspectors.

"If one person -- even Mladic -- tries to blackmail an entire population, the authorities have to react and that includes increasing pressure on the family," the paper quoted a security source as saying.

While accusing Kostunica of sheltering Mladic in the past, a former chief of Serbia's state security voiced confidence Sunday that the prime minister will make sure that Belgrade meets the deadline for the fugitive's handover.

"If you yourself limit yourself with a date of some kind, that means that you already have the package and all you need to do is wrap it up," the AP quoted Goran Petrovic, who headed the secret service following the 2000 ouster of former President Slobodan Milosevic, as saying.

In a separate development Friday, the Serbia-Montenegro Parliament passed a law freezing the assets of fugitive war crimes suspects.