Serbs 'have political will to arrest Mladic'

A top Serb official said today that Serbian authorities had the political will to arrest former Bosnian Serb army commander Ratko Mladic and hand him over to a UN tribunal.

“There is no dilemma any more, the psychological barrier has been crossed,” Human Rights Minister Rasim Ljajic told B92 radio.

Serbian authorities, working with international observers, have been trying to locate Mladic, a top suspect sought by the UN court in The Hague, Netherlands, he said.

“We are making huge efforts to find him, but no one can say with certainty that he is in Serbia.”

Serbia has faced international criticism and pressure for failing to arrest and extradite Mladic. The pressure has intensified ahead of the 10th anniversary of the Srebrenica massacre in eastern Bosnia, a slaughter of 8,000 Muslim boys and men that allegedly took place under orders from Mladic and the wartime Bosnian Serb political leader, Radovan Karadzic, who also remains at large.

European Union officials say Serbia must arrest Mladic before it can establish closer ties with the EU. In January, the US withheld €8m in economic aid to Serbia-Montenegro over co-operation with The Hague tribunal.

Another €12.8m was also withheld by the US Congress nearly a year ago for the same reason.

Ljajic, who visited Washington recently, said he expected the US to release the aid for Serbia next month because “we will take steps that will persuade everybody that we really want to locate and extradite Mladic if he is here”.

“We will not be held hostage to those people,” Ljajic said of Mladic and several other war crimes fugitives.

He added that two of the people wanted by the Hague tribunal – a retired Serb police general and a Bosnian Serb suspect – are known to be hiding in Russia and that efforts were underway to determine whether another fugitive is also there.

Belgrade has orchestrated the transfer of more than a dozen Serb suspects to The Hague court since October.