Serbia says it met court's demands on Balkan crime

Jun 6, 2011, 19:25 GMT

New York - Serbia has provided 'full cooperation' with the UN war crimes tribunal on the former Yugoslavia by capturing former General Ratko Mladic, who faces charges related to the alleged masterminding of the Srebrenica massacre, a Serb diplomat said Monday.

Serb Ambassador Feodor Starcevic told the UN Security Council that Belgrade had arrested and transferred to the tribunal at The Hague 45 of the 46 people indicted for war crime in the Bosnian ethnic war from 1992 to 1995.

'For all these reasons, Serbia believes it has now undoubtedly achieved full cooperation with the tribunal (ICTY),' Starcevic said.

Starcevic said Belgrade is trying to arrest the last outstanding suspect, Goran Hadzic, pledging his government would not allow impunity. Serbia is fulfilling obligations demanded by the tribunal as part of required steps to join the European Union and appeared close to that goal, he said.

The tribunal's prosecutor, Serge Brammertz, also called at a UN Security Council session for Belgrade to arrest Hadzic 'without delay.'

It took Belgrade 16 years to arrest Mladic, who still has supporters in Serbia. He was arrested last month and faces trial at The Hague.

Mladic stands accused of masterminding with genocidal intent the massacre of 8,000 men and boys in Srebrenica, along with other atrocities during the 1992-1995 Bosnian civil war, including the shelling of Sarajevo and taking hostage the Dutch UN soldiers protecting Srebrenica.

'If the arrest of Mladic is an excellent results, he nonetheless had been a fugitive for 16 years,' Brammertz said. He suggested that Belgrade answer 'troubling questions' about why Mladic had been able to escape attention for so long.

Brammertz told the council, however, that the tribunal was satisfied with Belgrade's cooperation in bringing Mladic to justice.

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