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Serbia and Montenegro International Security Institute Director Claims Mladic Was Arrested in Romania 22 February 2006 | 19:50 | FOCUS News Agency Banja Luka. General Ratko Mladic was arrested in Romania by British SAS commandoes yesterday during joint British - Romanian security forces drill, Director of Serbia and Montenegro International Institute for Security Orhan Dragas told in interview with RTRS, Bosnia agency FENA informs. Dragas stated Hague Tribunal refuted information on Mladic’s arrest because Mladic has not yet been handed over to The Hague. According to Dragas Serbian Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica was wise not to want Ratko Mladic to...

Sarajevo — One of the most sought-after war-crimes fugitives in the world appeared close to capture last night as Serbian government sources said that former general Ratko Mladic has been found and was negotiating his surrender after a decade in hiding. Rumours abounded yesterday that the ex-commander of Serbian armed forces had been arrested in either Bosnia or Serbia. He is said to be responsible for such atrocities in the Bosnian civil war of the 1990s as the slaughter of more than 7,000 men and boys in the United Nations safe haven of Srebrenica........"

BELGRADE (Reuters) - Top Bosnian Serb war crimes fugitive General Ratko Mladic has been arrested, the official Serbian news agency Tanjug on Tuesday quoted a local television station in Bosnia's Serb Republic as saying. No immediate confirmation of the report was available. Tanjug said TV BN reported the wartime Bosnian Serb Army commander had been taken into custody in the Serbian capital Belgrade and was being transferred via the northeast Bosnian city of Tuzla to the U.N. war crimes tribunal in The Hague. An earlier report by Belgrade's "Studio B" television said Mladic had been located "in the area of...

An operation was underway tonight to capture the fugitive Serbian general Ratko Mladic - one of the world's most wanted war crimes suspects for his role in the Bosnian war. A senior Serbian state security official told the Associated Press that he been located and authorities were negotiating his surrender, some 10 years after he was first indicted by the UN. Gen Mladic was located but "he has yet not been arrested," said the official, who is close to the arrest operation. The commander was in charge of Serbian troops accused of ethnic cleansing in the 1992-1995 war and the...

War Crimes Fugitive Believed Cornered By DUSAN STOJANOVIC, Associated Press Writer War crimes fugitive Gen. Ratko Mladic, accused of genocide and crimes against humanity stemming from the Bosnian war, has been located and authorities are negotiating his surrender, a top state security official said Tuesday. Mladic was located but "he has yet not been arrested," the official, who is close to the operation to locate Mladic, told The Associated Press. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media. The state news agency Tanjug reported that Mladic was arrested in Belgrade and being...

The Srebrenica operation was planned so that Bosnian Serb forces were positioned in a shape of a horseshoe, thus intentionally leaving space for the Muslim army and civilians to retreat North, North-West towards Tuzla. The distance of 36km and the configuration of the terrain are such that any man in average physical condition can cross it on foot. The military operation was conducted in this manner with the intention of minimizing the number of casualties, since the Muslims had brought in substantial military forces. If the Muslim forces had been hermetically enclosed, a violent fight would have ensued in which...

Getting Serious by Igor Jovanovic 6 February 2006 The EU could block a key agreement with Belgrade if war-crimes fugitive Ratko Mladic is not arrested. BELGRADE, Serbia and Montenegro | Serbia’s path to the EU is currently blocked by a single individual: retired General Ratko Mladic, an indicted war criminal. Mladic’s arrest has become an urgent matter for the Belgrade government since European officials have made it clear that a Stabilization and Association Agreement (SAA) would not be concluded unless Serbia fully cooperates with the Hague tribunal, which means handing over the wartime commander of the Bosnian Serb army. The...

he US yesterday made the case for offering Serbia incentives to reach agreement in negotiations over the final status of Kosovo, while setting out the possibility of independence for the province if the ethnic Albanian majority accepted compromises to accommodate its Serbian minority. Nicholas Burns, undersecretary of state, told a Senate hearing the US was neither championing independence nor autonomy for Kosovo. But diplomats said his testimony was a clear signal the US looked favourably on independence, under certain conditions. In what diplomats also called a significant policy statement, Mr Burns made clear the US had no objection to independence...

Phone Call Led Serbs to Wanted Fugitive By DUSAN STOJANOVIC, Associated PressBELGRADE, Serbia-Montenegro - A Serbian security official said Tuesday that investigators had located aides to top war crimes fugitive Gen. Ratko Mladic by intercepting one of his cell phone conversations.As a result, the arrest of the wartime Bosnian Serb military commander "has never been closer," said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the information. Serbian war crimes prosecutor Vladimir Vukcevic said last week that authorities had identified a number of people allegedly aiding Mladic — who went into hiding in 2003 —...

A Croatian general charged with war crimes has been held in Spain, the UN's chief war crimes prosecutor has said. Ante Gotovina - the third most-wanted suspect from the 1990s Balkan wars - was arrested on Wednesday night in the Canary Islands, said Carla Del Ponte. Gen Gotovina, 50, is accused over the death of about 150 Serb civilians during a Croatian offensive in 1995. The Croatian government's failure to arrest him had hampered the country's entry talks with the European Union. Ms Del Ponte said she hoped efforts would now be stepped up to arrest the top two men...

BELGRADE, Serbia-Montenegro (AP) - Lawmakers Friday elected a reported ally of notorious war crimes fugitive Ratko Mladic as Serbia-Montenegro's new defense minister. Zoran Stankovic, former director of the Belgrade military hospital, was elected with 72 votes in the 126-member assembly. Stankovic's candidacy was put forward by Serbia, the country's larger republic, after an equipment purchase scandal forced the previous minister to resign. Some analysts believe Serbian Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica proposed Stankovic in hopes that he would persuade Mladic to surrender to the Netherlands-based U.N. war crimes tribunal. Stankovic, 51, is believed to have close ties to Mladic, a former...

NATO says it will keep the son of former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic in custody until he reveals information that may lead to the capture of his father. NATO spokesman in Sarajevo Derek Chappell told the dpa news agency that Aleksandar Karadzic will be kept in detention as long as it takes to get information NATO believes he has. NATO military units picked Karadzic up Thursday at his home in Pale, near Sarajevo. The UN war crimes tribunal in the Hague has indicted the elder Karadzic on charges of genocide and war crimes. There is no information on what...

Nato troops have arrested the son of Bosnian Serb wartime leader Radovan Karadzic, who is wanted for war crimes. Aleksandar "Sasa" Karadzic was detained in Pale, the Bosnian leadership's stronghold during the 1992-1995 war. Witnesses said he was led away in handcuffs and a flak jacket; a hood was put over his head as he was driven away and then flown out by helicopter. A statement from Nato said the arrest happened without incident and the operation was ongoing. It said Aleksandar Karadzic was suspected of giving support to a war crimes suspect indicted by the International Criminal Tribunal for...

Top war crimes fugitive Ratko Mladic has been located in Serbia and his arrest and extradition to the UN war crimes tribunal is imminent, a prominent Belgrade newspaper reported today. The independent Danas said the current location of the war-time Bosnian Serb army commander was provided to the Serbian government by chief UN war crimes prosecutor Carla Del Ponte during her June 2 visit to Belgrade. The report could not be independently verified, and a government source refused to comment. Mladic and another top suspect, Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic, have been on the run since 1995 when they were...

Just four years ago it was not unusual to find wanted war criminal Ratko Mladic enjoying himself at one of Belgrade's finer dining establishments or getting drunk and belligerent at a football match. Hailed as a war hero and protected by President Slobodan Milosevic and the Serbian army, the former Bosnian Serb general was living the good life in retirement. In contrast, try to imagine Himmler or Mengele attending opening night at the Vienna Opera House in 1950. Mladic remained on the payroll of both the Serbian and the Bosnian Serb military for years after he was indicted for war...

US Joins in Coordinated Moves on Balkans War Crimes Fugitives By David Gollust State Department 16 December 2004 The international community Thursday announced new measures against Bosnian Serb officials for failing to hand over indicted Balkans war crimes figures to the U.N. tribunal in The Hague. They include targeted sanctions by the United States. The coordinated action by the United States, the International High Representative for Bosnia, Paddy Ashdown, and European Union peacekeepers in Bosnia reflects international frustration that key Balkans war crimes figures remain at large. Mr. Ashdown, international overseer of the 1995 Dayton accords on the Balkans conflict,...

A probe into the mysterious shooting of two soldiers has revealed the existence beneath the Serbian capital of a secret communist-era network of tunnels and bunkers that could have served as recent hideouts for some of the world's most-wanted war crimes suspects. The 2-square-mile complex -- dubbed a "concrete underground city" by the local media -- was built deep inside a rocky hill in a residential area of Belgrade in the 1960s on the orders of communist strongman Josip Broz Tito. Until recently its existence was known only to senior military commanders and politicians. The secret was revealed during an...

Radovan Karadzic, the psychiatrist who became the most wanted war criminal"It's better for them to kill me" YES, IT WAS AN unusual picture of a man who is generally seen as The Most Wanted Man in the world. Radovan Karadzic, the former psychiatrist, the former leader of the Bosnian-Serbian party SDS, the former president of the Bosnian-Serbs. Believed to be the architect of ethnic cleansing and atrocities which we only know from the books and films (I mean, I wasn't born yet) about World War 2, and now sitting on a couch with his 3-months young grandson Nebosha sleeping...

ELGRADE, Serbia-Montenegro - One of the world's most-wanted war crimes fugitives — Bosnian Serb military commander Ratko Mladic — has sent a message to authorities saying he will not surrender, a Serbian newspaper reported Wednesday. Photo AP Photo Mladic has been on the run since his indictment by a U.N. war crimes tribunal in The Hague (news - web sites), Netherlands, in connection with the massacre of thousands of Muslims in the town of Bosnian city of Srebrenica in 1995. According to a report Wednesday by the Blic daily, which cited an anonymous Serbian government source, Serbian authorities have been...

July 12 (Bloomberg) -- A U.S. Army general expressed confidence that his multinational force is closing in on Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic, the top war crimes fugitives in Europe, even as Bosnian officials pointed to confusion over who is responsible for capturing them. ``We are beginning to strangle them,'' said Major General Virgil Packett, commander of the Bosnia Stabilization Force, at a briefing before the House Armed Services Committee today in Washington. ``We are hearing them squeal a bit.'' With Bosnia and Herzegovina's entry into the European Union on hold until the men can be detained under United Nations...