Serb leader pledges to catch fugitives

SERBIA:SERB PRESIDENT Boris Tadic vowed yesterday to catch Ratko Mladic and Goran Hadzic, the two remaining war crimes fugitives whose continued freedom could block the country's attempts to join the European Union.

"Today nobody can tell Serbia that it is avoiding international justice and it does not respect international law," he said in his most extensive comments since the recent arrest of Radovan Karadzic, the leader of Bosnia's Serbs during the country's 1992-1995 war.

"Today nobody can tell Serbia it was not ready to arrest those indicted by The Hague tribunal and to show its full readiness to co-operate with that international legal institution," he insisted, in reference to the UN war crimes court, with which the EU says Serbia must work fully before standing a chance of membership.

Mr Tadic refused to discuss the hunt for General Mladic, who is charged with genocide for the three-year Serb siege of Sarajevo and for the slaughter of 8,000 Bosnian Muslims in Srebrenica, or the search for Mr Hadzic, who was accused of crimes against humanity during Croatia's 1991-95 war for independence.

The president also declined to give details of the capture of Mr Karadzic, but he did deny reports that he had personally given the final order for security service agents to move in and arrest him as he travelled on a suburban Belgrade bus.

Serbia's powerful ultra-nationalists have lambasted Mr Tadic for handing over Mr Karadzic to The Hague and for co-operating with the EU despite its support for Kosovo's independence. Some politicians have denounced him as a traitor.

He brushed off reports of death threats yesterday, however.

"The threats of liquidation are not good for the country and its international image," he said.

"But I'm willing to take the risk."

Serb media reported this weekend that Mr Karadzic was seized after Washington lifted a secret guarantee of immunity from prosecution if he agreed to stay out of public life.

"Karadzic . . . was under US protection until 2000, when the CIA intercepted his telephone conversation that clearly proved he personally chaired a meeting of his old political party," the Blic newspaper quoted a "well informed US intelligence source" as saying.

However, former senior US officials have denied they ever offered to shield Mr Karadzic from arrest.