The Serbian government has denied reports that Bosnian Serb war crimes fugitive General Ratko Mladic had been arrested
General Ratko Mladic
The official Serbian news agency Tanjug 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 UN war crimes tribunal in The Hague.
However, the Serbian government denied the reports.
"The news about Ratko Mladic is not correct," said Srdjan Djuric, a spokesman for Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica. "It is a manipulation which damages the government and does not contribute to its efforts to fully complete its cooperation with The Hague."
Other reports suggest Mladic has been located and authorities are negotiating his surrender.
Mladic (63) is indicted on two counts of genocide - for the massacre of 8,000 Muslims at Srebrenica in 1995 and the siege of Sarajevo in which over 10,000 civilians were killed.
He lived openly in Belgrade until the fall of nationalist strongman Slobodan Milosevic in 2000 undermined his support. Serbia has been under increasing Western criticism that it was not doing enough to bring Mladic to justice.
Belgrade is anxious to avoid suspension of Stabilisation and Association pact talks begun last year. They are the first step to eventual EU membership - Serbia's top priority - and Brussels had warned they will stop if Mladic was not arrested.
The UN's chief tribunal prosecutor Carla Del Ponte has repeatedly charged that he was being protected by hardline elements in the Army and security agencies of Serbia.
The Serbia-Montenegro army admitted in a report earlier this month Mladic had been hiding in army facilities until mid-2002 and has since been helped by former army officers, some of whom had been identified and were being checked by police.
Officials at the EU and The Hague tonight said they had no information about his reported arrest. "We have no information that something particular has happened today," said Florence Hartmann, spokeswoman for the Yugoslav tribunal.
She repeated assertions made by Chief Prosecutor Carla del Ponte that Mladic is in Serbia and "in the immediate reach" of the authorities.
"We have said for the last 10 days that the arrest could take place very quickly," she said.
In Washington, US State Department spokesman Adam Ereli said: "He continues to be a fugitive from justice." He said he was not aware Mladic had been arrested or detained.