Banja Luka - Yugoslavia denied suggestions yesterday that the key Bosnian Serb war crimes suspects, Mr Radovan Karadzic and Gen Ratko Mladic, were hiding in the country.
The Interior Minister, Mr Zoran Zivkovic, who belongs to the reformist government formed after the former president, Mr Slobodan Milosevic, was toppled last year, issued the denial during a visit to Bosnia. "Since November last year when the new federal government took over, there was no information that Karadzic and Mladic were in the territory of Yugoslavia," Mr Zivkovic said.
The UN's chief war crimes prosecutor, Ms Carla Del Ponte, suggested last week in Belgrade she had information that Gen Mladic was in Yugoslavia and that she believed the Serbian government would help arrest and hand him over to the Hague-based tribunal.