SARAJEVO, March 7 (Hina) - International organisations active in Bosnia and the governments of the U.S. and EU nations on Friday launched an operation aimed at thwarting the network which is helping former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan
Karadzic hide from the Hague tribunal, U.S. Ambassador to Bosnia Clifford Bond said.
SARAJEVO, March 7 (Hina) - International organisations active in
Bosnia and the governments of the U.S. and EU nations on Friday
launched an operation aimed at thwarting the network which is
helping former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic hide from the
Hague tribunal, U.S. Ambassador to Bosnia Clifford Bond said. #L#
He told journalists in Sarajevo the United States Administration
had decided to freeze all assets and accounts of two persons and two
companies that had been established to be the direct financial
backers of Karadzic's protection.
These two figures are Momcilo Mandic and Milovan Bjelica, said
Bond, recalling that Mandic was the owner of Pale-based Manco Oil
and Bjelica the key figure in Privredna Bank from the Serb-
controlled part of Sarajevo.
During the war Mandic was a close Karadzic associate who held the
office of police minister in the Bosnian Serb stronghold of Pale.
After the war he moved to Belgrade where he built his business
empire by trafficking petrol. He returned to Bosnia and Herzegovina
a few months ago.
Bjelica is one of the most influential officials of the Serb
Democratic Party, which was founded by Karadzic. He is publicly
referred to as the unofficial master of a wider area in the Bosnian
Serb entity which extends from Sarajevo across Romania to the
east.
The command of NATO's Stabilisation Force confirmed that an
operation related to Mandic and Bjelica had been launched in Pale
earlier today. After the U.S., other European states are expected
to follow suit by blocking property owned by the two, who will also
be banished from the U.S.
The international community's High Representative to Bosnia, Paddy
Ashdown, said today he had ordered the freezing of all assets and
accounts belonging to Mandic and Bjelica.
Ashdown said Karadzic was not only an outlaw hiding in the hills but
also the chief of an organisation which acted in the shadow but was
very strong, giving him protection, information, support, and
shelter.
Ashdown said an official protest note had also been forwarded to
Belgrade as the Serbia and Montenegro authorities were also
expected to block Mandic's and Bjelica's business network. This,
Ashdown said, would financially quarantine the two.
He said Bosnia had started acting out the same script that had led
first to the isolation and toppling of Slobodan Milosevic and then
his extradition to the U.N. war crimes tribunal.
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