"Simply put, the people go for financial reasons and this arrangement was made with them by Serbian Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica," Batic said, suggesting that this was a way of laundering money acquired through the institutionalised racketeering of businessmen and tycoons connected with crime.
"There are people who have given money for the accused to go to The Hague in order to legalise their dirty money. And everyone is happy, these businessmen, Kostunica, but also the Hague indictees," Batic said, adding that the amounts ranged from several hundred thousand to two million euros and were paid out by the rule "the bigger the patriot the bigger the amount".
Batic went on to say that the Serbian government had never refuted this and that recently the public could see that war crimes indictees were surrendering en masse from Serbia but not from the Bosnian Serb entity, which he said encouraged a voluntary surrender with a mere 25,000 euros.
Batic said the first level of these payers was made of businessmen arrested during a police operation undertaken to find the killers of Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic. He added these people were being racketeered by incumbent PM Kostunica, while the second level comprised tycoons from the time of former Yugoslav president and Hague tribunal indictee Slobodan Milosevic. Batic said these tycoons were currently sponsoring some political parties in Serbia.