Serbia arrests last major war crimes fugitive

SERBIA has arrested the last major war crimes suspect from the 1990s conflicts in former Yugoslavia, closing what its president said was a “burdensome” page in the country’s history.

Goran Hadzic, a Croatian Serb wartime leader indicted for crimes against humanity during the 1991-’95 Croatian war, was picked up by Serb forces in the picturesque Fruska Gora national park region about 65 km north of Belgrade.

He faces 14 counts of crimes against humanity and war crimes for the murders of hundreds of people and deportation of tens of thousands of Croats between 1992 and 1993.

Hadzic was indicted in 2004 for war crimes and crimes against humanity, including “persecutions on political, racial or religious grounds, extermination, murder, torture, deportation and forcible transfer”, as well as “wanton destruction” or “devastation”.

“We nabbed him while he was about to meet a helper. He had changed his appearance somewhat and had fake papers on him,” said an operative. “He did not resist arrest, but we were ready for all contingencies.”

Hadzic, 52, was a key figure in the breakaway Krajina Serb republic in Croatia, and after the arrest of wartime Serb General Ratko Mladic in May, he was the last suspect sought by the UN war crime tribunal in The Hague.

“We have closed a burdensome and gloomy page of our history,” said President Boris Tadic, who called a news conference to announce the arrest.

“We did this for the people of Serbia, for other nations, for the victims and for reconciliation.”

The European Union, which hailed Belgrade for finding Mladic in May, had insisted on Hadzic’s arrest for Serbia to progress toward EU membership.

“This is a further important step for Serbia in realising its European perspective and equally crucially for international justice,” EU officials said.

Tadic said Serbian security agents arrested Hadzic near the village of Krusedol, a short drive from the Croatian town of his birth.

Tadic did not say where he had been hiding, but, seeking to squash speculation that either the church or military had harboured him, he said Hadzic was not arrested in a monastery or a military barracks.

Parts of the military had helped Mladic evade arrest for years and the Serbian Orthodox church played a role in the Yugoslav wars, often stoking the flames of nationalism against Catholic Croats and Muslim Bosniaks, who largely descend from the same stock of south Slavs as the Serbs.

The arrests of Hadzic and Mladic follow intensive work by Serbian officials over the past three years.

Hadzic is charged with ordering the killing of hundreds and the deportation of thousands of Croats and other non-Serbs from the region of Croatia he took over.

Croatian Prime Minister Jadranka Kosor said her country had waited too long.

“Of course the arrest of Hadzic is good news for humanity and the whole world, but first and foremost for us in Croatia,” she told a news conference in Warsaw.

For years, Hadzic was overshadowed by the higher profile ethnic Serb fugitives Radovan Karadzic, the Bosnian Serb leader, and his military commander Mladic.

Hadzic may ultimately be remembered mostly as the man who evaded justice longer than the others.

“He is much more discreet than the others in terms of personality and what he did,” said Anna Maria Corazza Bildt, a member of European Parliament who served during the war with UN forces in the region of Croatia where Hadzic was a regional leader.

The UN war crimes prosecutor Serge Brammertz said Hadzic was expected to be extradited to the court in The Hague “within days” — the last of the 161 suspects indicted by the court to be transferred.