Del Ponte Insists Serbia Finds Fugitives Before EU Talks

The chief war crimes prosecutor for ex-Yugoslavia, Carla Del Ponte, has insisted Belgrade surrenders the last four Serb fugitives from international justice before signing a pre-accession deal with the European Union.



Belgrade’s failure to find the fugitives - Bosnian Serbs Ratko Mladic, Radovan Kardadzic and Stojan Zulpjanin and Croatian Serb Goran Hadzic - has long been a stumbling block to closer ties with Europe, despite Serbian claims to be trying as hard as it can.



Less than a month ago, Belgrade and Brussels initialed a Stabilisation and Association Agreement, SAA, a first step towards full membership. But Del Ponte does not want the process to go any further.



“It is important that Mladic ends up in The Hague in January or February, but certainly before signing the Stabilisation and Association Agreement between the EU and Serbia. If we lose that lever, it will never happen,” Del Ponte said in Brussels.



EU officials say they only agreed to initial the SAA last month because Del Ponte was reporting a better level of cooperation from Belgrade, but the move was still condemned by rights groups for sending the wrong signal to Serbia.



Del Ponte, who leaves office at the end of this month, is expected to give her final report to the UN Security Council on December 10, after which the EU will decide whether to proceed with the SAA.



But Serbian officials still hope Del Ponte’s report will not be the deciding factor, and that the SAA will be signed by January 28, regardless of her assessment.



Only a few days before Del Ponte’s visit to Belgrade, the Serbian authorities said they would present new evidence about the fugitives to her. However, it is very unlikely that this will lead to the transfer of any of the four men to The Hague by the end of the prosecutor’s mandate.



Mladic and Karadzic are charged with genocide in Srebrenica, where 8,000 Bosniak civilians were killed by the Bosnian Serbs in July 1995. Hadzic and Zupljanin are accused of war crimes in Croatia and Bosnia respectively.



At the meeting in Brussels on December 4, Del Ponte said the local authorities had told her they had information that Mladic was in Serbia. She did not know if there were any technical difficulties delaying his arrest.



In response to her speech, Serbian deputy prime minister Bozidar Djelic said Serbia was doing everything in its power to complete cooperation with the tribunal and “would not rest until it had done so”.



“I hope that you will stick to the facts that show that Belgrade has been doing everything it can to achieve full cooperation with The Hague,” he said.



Del Ponte’s spokeswoman said the prosecutor had told the president and prime minister that she expected results, meaning "the arrest of Ratko Mladic and the rest of the fugitives who should be transferred to The Hague”.



Rasim Ljajic, the president of the national council for cooperation with The Hague, who was also at the meeting, said, "The remaining Hague indictees are not at the tribunal yet because they are hiding well and are not within reach of our state at this time.



”If they are not in Serbia, we must clearly state where they are, because that will be the only thing that will convince the international community."



Dusan Ignjatovic, director of the Office of the National Council for Cooperation with the Tribunal, told IWPR that Serbia should be careful not to think Del Ponte had changed her mind just because the EU had initialed the SAA.



“She won’t approve the signing of the agreement until she sees Mladic is in The Hague,” he warned.



However, Ignjatovic claims that “Serbia has clearly shown a political will to cooperate with the tribunal”, and pointed out at some concrete results.



“We transferred 42 of 46 indicted war crimes suspects to The Hague - two former presidents, two ex-chiefs of the general staff of the Yugoslav army, several police generals,” he said.



Ignajtovic admits Serbia has so far been unsuccessful in its attempts to locate and arrest Mladic, “but that doesn’t mean the results won’t come”.



Aleksandar Roknic is an IWPR reporter in Belgrade.