New hope for Mladic war crimes trial
Gen Ratko Mladic’s days as a war crimes fugitive may be numbered, according to a senior US State Department official who announced the US was lifting its freeze on a $10m (€8.2m) aid package to Serbia-Montenegro.
“It’s our very strong hope that Serbia will now take the final steps to send Gen Mladic to The Hague to have him put on trial for the crimes he directed in the murder of 8,000 men and boys of Srebrenica,” US Under-secretary of State Nicholas Burns said yesterday after meeting Serbian officials in Belgrade.
“We hope his days in relative freedom are numbered,” Burns said.
Announcing the end of the US aid package freeze, Burns said Serbia-Montenegro’s cooperation with the UN war crimes tribunal in The Hague had improved after the government-negotiated surrenders of some dozen Serb war crimes suspects.
Serbian Justice Minister Zoran Stojkovic denied media reports of secret government negotiations with Mladic on his surrender but said he “shared Mr Burns’ optimism” that the issue would soon be resolved.
“The government is doing everything possible to find Gen Mladic,” Stojkovic said.
Despite recent surrenders of suspects, Mladic, who is believed to be hiding in Serbia, and wartime leader Radovan Karadzic, thought to be in Bosnia, remain at large.
However, Belgrade recently stepped up pledges to deliver Mladic if the former Bosnian Serb military commander is found here.
Burns, whose visit to the Serbian capital concluded a three-day Balkan tour, told Serbia’s leadership that Mladic’s extradition would help the country’s chances of joining the European Union and NATO.
He told reporters he was confident the Serb government was working to find Mladic and that “there will be a sincere attempt to capture him or to have him surrender voluntarily”.
The UN tribunal indicted Mladic and Karadzic in 1995 for genocide and other war crimes, including the slaughter of Srebrenica – Europe’s worst massacre since World War II.
Burns cited a videotape released last week showing the killing of six Muslim prisoners from Srebrenica and said he ”cannot imagine a more appropriate initiative than to see Gen Mladic in The Hague” for the massacre’s tenth anniversary on July 11.
