BELGRADE BELGRADE, April 14 (Hina) - Momcilo Mandic, a former head of the Bosnian interior ministry's public security department and one top officials in the Bosnian Serb entity during the war, was nabbed in Belgrade on Thursday
evening, according to unofficial reports.
BELGRADE, April 14 (Hina) - Momcilo Mandic, a former head of the
Bosnian interior ministry's public security department and one top
officials in the Bosnian Serb entity during the war, was nabbed in
Belgrade on Thursday evening, according to unofficial reports.
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According to sources who spoke on condition of anonymity, Mandic,
who has been in the business circles in Serbia and Bosnian Serb
entity in recent years, was arrested after a local basketball match
in Belgrade on Thursday night. There is still no official
confirmation by the police on Mandic's arrest.
After the break-up of the former Socialist Federal Republic of
Yugoslavia (SFRY), Mandic was given the office of the head of the
public security department of the interior ministry in the first
multi-party government in Bosnia-Herzegovina in 1991. He held this
office until mid-1992 when he joined the government which Serb
leader Radovan Karadzic formed in Pale, outside Sarajevo. Mandic
was the local interior minister until the end of 1993.
After that he began to present himself as a businessman developing
his businesses in the Bosnian Serb entity and the then Yugoslavia.
The scope of his activities covered petroleum products, financial
transactions and investments in media in the FR Yugoslavia. In a
recent operation carried out by international peace-keepers in
Bosnia, his accounts and assets in Bosnia as well as in Serbia-
Montenegro were blocked on suspicion that he was involved in murky
dealings.
He is believed to financially help the harbouring of Karadzic and
Ratko Mladic, wanted by the UN war crimes tribunal for the former
Yugoslavia (ICTY).
According to Serbian media, he also financially backed the Nacional
daily, which was banned after the assassination of the Serbian
Premier Zoran Djindjic a month ago.
A Serbian weekly has also reported that Mandic was connected with
Zeljko Skrba, a protected witness, who was killed in 2002 when he
was prepared, according to the media speculations, to testify about
drug trafficking routes in Yugoslavia controlled by Mandic. The
profit from the heroin smuggling was used for the logistic support
of war crimes suspects Mladic and Karadzic, according to the same
paper.
(hina) ms