Posted on 06/29/2004 6:55:38 PM PDT by Jane_N
THE chief UN war crimes prosecutor for former Yugoslavia said she expects Bosnian Serb wartime political leader Radovan Karadzic to be handed over for prosecution by today.
Carla del Ponte refused to disclose the basis for her optimism that Karadzic, who has been in hiding for nearly a decade, will be arrested by the end of the month.
"I'm still thinking that somebody is looking for Karadzic very hard, and that he will be arrested very soon," she said. "Of course I have (information). But you all understand that I cannot tell it now publicly. Let's obtain the arrest of Karadzic and after we will speak about what we have done."
Ms Del Ponte was responding to a question about a report that she felt Karadzic would be handed over to the UN war crimes tribunal in The Hague, Netherlands, this month. When a reporter noted that June ends tomorrow, she replied: "I'm still expecting (it), yes. But let's see."
The chief prosecutor spoke to reporters after telling the UN Security Council it was unacceptable that Karadzic and his military chief Gen. Ratko Mladic were still fugitives nearly 10 years after the Dayton peace agreement that ended the war in Bosnia was signed.
"How long will it be tolerated that these leaders escape justice?," Ms del Ponte asked. "How long will it be tolerated that they make a parody of both justice and the repeated commitment of the Security Council to have them arrested and tried?"
She placed the blame squarely on Serbia and Montenegro and the Serb-controlled half of Bosnia known as Republika Srpska.
Last Friday, NATO-led peacekeepers raided Karadzic's former wartime headquarters at the Panorama Hotel in Pale, his stronghold in Republika Srpska. They also raided the Pale premises of Karadzic's Serb Democratic Party.
But NATO peacekeepers did not say if anything was found.
Karadzic was the leader of Bosnia's Serbs during the ethnic war that claimed 200,000 lives and left 1.8 million people homeless.
He and Mladic were indicted in 1995 by the UN court at The Hague on charges of genocide for their alleged roles in atrocities that included the Serb massacre of up to 8,000 Muslims at Srebrenica.
The NATO search came three days after Bosnian Serb President Dragan Cavic made the first formal acknowledgment by a top Bosnian Serb official that the massacre at Srebrenica took place and was the work of Serb forces.
Ms Del Ponte told the council that since December, authorities in Serbia and Montenegro, the successor state to Yugoslavia after the federation broke apart during the 1990s Balkans conflicts, had provided "almost no cooperation" with the prosecutor's office and the country "has become a safe haven for fugitives."
At least 15 fugitives, including Mladic, "spend most of their time there," she said.
"According to information recently obtained, fugitives that were believed to reside in Republika Srpska have moved across the border," Ms del Ponte said.
NATO-led peacekeepers deployed in Bosnia have a standing order to arrest Karadzic, but dozens of raids have been unsuccessful.
Peacekeepers have failed to arrest Karadzic in part because a network of supporters helps him financially and keeps him informed about troop movements. Karadzic is believed to change his location several times a day to evade arrest.
The 1992-1995 war pit Serbs opposed to Bosnia's independence from Yugoslavia against Muslims and Croats backing it. The Dayton peace accord divided Bosnia into two mini-states - the Muslim-Croat federation and the Serb republic. The country is run by an international administrator.
Bout time. He deserves life with no parole.
You becoming a New Testament guy? :-}
The noose is not available in the enlightened home counties of our forebears. I was just wishing for the obtainable. :)
Ahhhhh so.
Hey Carla, thanks for tipping him off, and making sure that he is extra precautious and changes his schedule and plans.
He dared to defend his people from Islamists and according to the mass media he killed 200,000 people whose bodies mysteriously disapeared without a trace under the watchful eye of international observers.
He is not a mass murderer. He is not murderer at all.
Ms del Ponte has plagiarized this oration directly from me, Cicero, the opening of Cataline I. As I recall it (from memory, so I may be a little off): "Quo usque, Cataline, abutere patientia nostra? Quem ad finem?" I want my royalties.
lol Cicero, you can always try sueing her? :)
"...bodies mysteriously disapeared without a trace..."
What are they digging out in Srebrenica, then? You need to change your medication.
The ultimate objective arbitrator of international war crimes. Allahu ahkbar!!!
Ping
You should go to Hague and testify.
He'll need to hone his skills and memorize his Islamoalbanian talking points first.
bttt
They are digging up bodies in a war zone. A mass grave to Del Ponte is as little as two bodies side to side.
In the real world, Serb defendants who choose to contest the charges against themselves are no longer denying that crimes took place, but seeking to deny their personal responsibility.
You're stuck in the past Destro.
Which isn't too much of a bad thing, as it's where you and your cohort of liars and deniers here on FR, and in Serbia and Bosnia for that matter, belong.
Bodies are not reburied after the fighting? When farmers return? ALL the graves for all sides have been found in war zones.
Neither of these is the case with Serbian attempts to hide the evidence of their crimes around Srebrenica though - I know it, you know it, and the people you can convince otherwise with your lies aren't worth the effort you expend tweaking their worldview.
Which puts you in the position of someone who's wasting his time lying to the only people who will believe him - fools.
Too bad your Pericles account got banned - it was more alliterative with 'Pied Piper' than Destro is.
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