Karadzic, Mladic, on Trail To The Hague

31/03/2001| IslamWeb

THE HAGUE, (Islamweb, Agencies) -The Bosnian Serb entity is ready to send the two most wanted war crimes suspects from the Bosnian conflict -- Bosnian Serb wartime leader Radovan Karadzic and his military chief Ratko Mladic -- to The Hague for trial, the Bosnian Serb prime minister said late Wednesday.
Speaking at Amsterdam's international airport, Bosnian Serb Prime Minister Mladen Ivanic, told the Dutch news agency ANP that "there is no other alternative than this solution."
Mladen Ivanic said he expects suspects who have been holed up in Yugoslavia will seek refuge in his Bosnian Serb republic, Republika Srpska, now that the neighboring Balkan nation has surrendered its former, Slobodan Milosevic.
But he encouraged those all indicted suspects - including Radovan Karadzic, the Serb leader during the Bosnian war, and Gen. Ratko Mladic, his top military officer - to instead turn themselves in to the court at The Hague, Netherlands.
Ivanic's comments came as he arrived in the Netherlands for meetings Thursday with chief war crimes prosecutor Carla Del Ponte and other officials of the U.N. court.
Bosnian sources said Ivanic was coming to The Hague in response to pressure from Western diplomats for Republika Srpska to seek out and hand over suspects.
Court officials said the visit was scheduled more than a month ago and was unrelated to Milosevic, who appeared before a U.N. war crimes tribunal July 3. But Ivanic said Milosevic's extradition has increased the pressure on Bosnian leadership to also arrest and surrender suspects.
On Tuesday, Ivanov's government drew up a draft law on cooperation with U.N. tribunal that he said he expected to be approved by parliament within three weeks. The bill is similar to the legislation that cleared the way for Milosevic's surrender
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Mr Ivanic said he did not know the whereabouts of Mr Karadzic and General Mladic, who are the two most wanted suspects from the Bosnian conflict. They are charged with genocide and other crimes against humanity - including the massacre of thousands of Muslim men from the town of Srebrenica in 1995. (BBC)
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