Army protected Mladic, ex-bodyguard says

10/06/2009

With 50 men assigned to protect him, Ratko Mladic was able to enjoy football matches and restaurants in Belgrade, his former security chief testified in court.

(Blic - 10/06/09; AP, AFP, Javno, B92 - 09/06/09; AFP, International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia - 04/06/09)

"It was all legal," Branislav Puhalo (left, with Ratko Mladic) told a Belgrade court. "We were tasked with protecting Mladic from criminals and bounty hunters." [AFP]

Ratko Mladic lived under army protection in Serbia until 2002, the fugitive war crimes indictee's former security chief said on Tuesday (June 9th).

Under orders from former President Slobodan Milosevic's regime, a unit of about 50 personnel was set up to protect Mladic after he arrived in Serbia in 1997. It was disbanded in March 2002, Branislav Puhalo told the Belgrade district court.

"Everything was legal," Puhalo said. He was testifying at the trial of ten people charged with helping the Bosnian Serb warlord escape justice.

Mladic disappeared after the end of the 1992-1995 conflict in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), just months after the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) issued its initial indictment against him, charging him with a host of war crimes, including the 1995 Srebrenica massacre.

Flaunting the charges against him, Mladic enjoyed an active life under army protection, according to Puhalo. "We went to football matches, to the police headquarters, to restaurants," the AP quoted him as saying Tuesday. "Mladic moved freely around Belgrade throughout 2001."

The unit, established under orders from then-Chief of General Staff Momcilo Perisic, had several vehicles and was heavily armed, the former bodyguard said.

"We were tasked with protecting Mladic from criminals and bounty hunters," he said.

He told the court that the former Bosnian Serb military commander first lived in the Belgrade suburb of Banovo Brdo before moving to town, while the members of his security detail slept at the Topcider military barracks in the Serbian capital until the unit was disbanded.

According to Puhalo, state officials, including then-President Vojislav Kostunica, must have been aware of the security arrangements.

"They all knew -- Milosevic, [former Chief of the General Staff] Dragoljub Ojdanic, [former army General] Nebojsa Pavkovic," Belgrade-based B92 quoted him as telling the court. "They knew if a bird had flown into the barracks … let alone 50 people with bombs, weapons and vehicles."

Full co-operation with the UN tribunal -- including the arrest of indicted war criminals -- is a key condition for Serbia's progress towards EU accession.

In his report to the Security Council last week, chief UN war crimes prosecutor Serge Brammertz said Serbia had made "additional progress in its co-operation" with The Hague tribunal, as it had complied with the large majority of requests for assistance filed by his team. The search for and arrest of Mladic and fellow fugitive Goran Hadzic remained "the central issue in relation to Serbia's co-operation," he noted.

Serbian war crimes prosecutor Vladimir Vukcevic said earlier this month that he wanted this issue resolved as soon as possible and the two fugitives sent to The Hague, so that his country would no longer be held hostage by them.

"Serbia is making efforts to comply with its international obligations," US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said last week.