Serbia to arrest Mladic by the end of the year - official

Nov 3, 2009, 16:04 GMT

   Belgrade - Serbia is doing everything it can to find the Balkans' top war crimes suspect Ratko Mladic and will arrest him by the end of the year, Rasim Ljajic, the head Serbia's National Council for Cooperation with the Hague Tribunal, said Tuesday.

   A day ahead of a visit by Serge Brammertz, chief prosecutor of the United Nations war crimes tribunal, Ljajic repeated that the he believes that by the end of this year authorities will track down and arrest Mladic and one other war crimes suspect - Goran Hadzic, the leader of Croatian Serbs during the 1991-95 Croatia war.

   'I stand behind what I said earlier,' that the suspects will be arrested by the end of the year, Ljajic told reporters in Belgrade.

   The arrest of Mladic, indicted by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia for the 1995 Srebrenica massacre, is a key condition for Serbia's membership in the European Union.

   After his visit to Serbia, Brammertz is expected to issue a report to the UN on Serbia's progress in cooperating with the ICTY.

   The implementation of the Stabilization and Association Agreement with the EU, which Belgrade signed in 2008, depends on that report, as the Netherlands has blocked its implementation, demanding Mladic's arrest.

   Ljajic said he expects the report to be 'positive.'

   'Further punishing of Serbia is unjustified, and regardless of the (Brammertz) report we will continue our activities to fulfill our cooperation with the Hague tribunal,' Ljajic said.

   Serbian officials have conducted several raids all over Serbia seeking information on Mladic's whereabouts. The failure to find him prompted Ljajic to say he would resign if Mladic wasn't arrested by the end of 2009.