Police step up hunt for Mladic

Masked special police, backed by helicopters, searched a western Serbian town today as part of a stepped up hunt for UN war crimes fugitive Ratko Mladic, witnesses and media said.

The Beta news agency reported that police arrested two people in a three-hour search of the town of Valjevo, about 50 miles southwest of Belgrade, where the Bosnian Serb wartime commander is known to have lived in the past.

“Something did happen,” said a police official in Valjevo.

“The special police came with helicopters, but it had nothing to do with us.”

The Valjevo officer could not confirm the arrests reported by the Beta news agency. There was also no immediate confirmation of the action from Serbian police in Belgrade.

The Serbian government has pledged to hunt down Mladic and so allow European Union pre-membership talks to resume. Brussels suspended the talks with Belgrade after Serbia failed to capture Mladic by the EU’s April 30 deadline.

EU officials have said the talks will continue once Mladic is arrested and handed over to the war crimes tribunal in The Hague, Netherlands.

The former Bosnian Serb commander is sought on genocide charges for the 1995 massacre of 8,000 Muslims in eastern Bosnia.

The tribunal’s prosecutors insist Mladic is hiding in Serbia under the protection of nationalist hardliners.

Today’s police operation in Valjevo followed a similar operation in Belgrade on Friday. Serbia’s state television showed footage of a helicopter flying over Valjevo and masked special police in black uniforms deployed in a residential part of the town.

The Beta news agency said the search focused on a military settlement near the local army barracks. The agency said the detained men were unidentified twin brothers.

Mladic is believed to have owned a house in Valjevo in late 1990s, when he moved to Serbia after the Bosnian war. Asked about Mladic, the Valjevo police officer said: ”I haven’t seen him in four years or so.”

So far, authorities have detained ten people suspected of helping Mladic evade justice.

The suspension of EU talks has dealt a major blow to Serbia’s attempt at economic recovery after years of isolation under ex-president Slobodan Milosevic.