SARAJEVO, Sept 5 (Hina) - The U.N. war crimes tribunal's chief prosecutor Carla del Ponte said on Wednesday she would continue insisting on the extradition of all war crimes suspects.
SARAJEVO, Sept 5 (Hina) - The U.N. war crimes tribunal's chief
prosecutor Carla del Ponte said on Wednesday she would continue
insisting on the extradition of all war crimes suspects. #L#
The hand-over of (former Yugoslav President Slobodan) Milosevic is
not enough. There are still 38 war crimes suspects at large. The
names of 27 war criminals have been made public whereas another 11
are on the sealed indictments. All of them must be brought to
justice, del Ponte said in Sarajevo where she held meetings with
Bosnia-Herzegovina's top officials and the international
community's representatives in charge of the implementation of the
Dayton peace agreement.
After the talks with the High Representative to Bosnia, Wolfgang
Petritsch, del Ponte openly accused Bosnian Croats and Serbs of
being the only ones still refusing cooperation with the Tribunal.
Five years after the conclusion of the Dayton peace accords, these
two sides have not yet struck up cooperation with the Tribunal, she
said, adding that she asked the Austrian diplomat Petritsch to
invest more efforts in the solution of this problem.
Del Ponte, however, refused to comment on the most interesting
question for the media: where the Bosnian Serb war-time leaders -
Radovan Karadzic and army commander Ratko Mladic - are at present
and why they have not been arrested yet. The Tribunal has indicted
Karadzic and Mladic for genocide in the 1992-5 siege of Sarajevo and
the 1995 massacre of up to 8,000 Muslims in the eastern enclave of
Srebrenica.
The chief commander of NATO-led international peace keepers in
Bosnia, General Michael Dodson, said on Tuesday he knew their
whereabouts. Del Ponte and Petritsch expressed satisfaction with
the news on Wednesday.
I have met Gen. Dodson, but please don't ask me about details
pertaining to Kardzic and Mladic. They should first be apprehended
and then we can talk about it, the Tribunal's chief prosecutor told
reporters in the Bosnian capital.
Commenting on statements by Serbian Premier Zoran Djindjic that he
had promised nothing to ICTY officials about the hand-over of Gen.
Ratko Mladic, del Ponte said Djindjic had told her he really did not
know where Mladic was. On the other hand, she said, she received
assurances from the Yugoslav and Serbian justice ministers about
their cooperation in extraditing persons who were currently
treated as fugitives.
High Representative Petritsch explained that a few months ago he
and the authorities in Belgrade had reached agreement in principle
which should facilitate the arrest of all suspects.
The Austrian ambassador also urged all countries in the area of the
former Yugoslavia to cooperate in resolving this problem.
Asked about her plans should Bosnian Serb authorities persist in
refusing to cooperate, del Ponte said she would insist on the set-up
of a team of hunters within her office.
If the Bosnian Serb authorities show unwillingness to find and
arrest such people, then such a team will do it, del Ponte said at
the end of her visit to Sarajevo.
(hina) ms