Fugitive handovers blocked, says UN prosecutor

THE UN war crimes prosecutor for former Yugoslavia has accused the government of Serbia and Montenegro of blocking the handover of top fugitives, and dismissed Belgrade’s promise of cooperation.

Nonetheless, Carla del Ponte said she is still optimistic that Bosnian Serb wartime leader Radovan Karadzic and his military chief General Ratko Mladic will face justice before the international war crimes tribunal in The Hague, Netherlands.

But she told the Security Council the government of Serbia-Montenegro remains “the single most important obstacle” to the prosecution of alleged war criminals from former Yugoslavia, and has deliberately ignored its obligations to cooperate with the UN tribunal.

Next year is the 10th anniversary of the slaughter of up to 8,000 Muslims by Bosnian Serbs who overran the UN-protected Muslim enclave of Srebrenica.