EU troops raid homes of suspected Mladic helpers in Bosnia

(SARAJEVO) - European Union forces in Bosnia on Friday raided the homes of a suspected helper of war crimes fugitive Ratko Mladic and his relative, the peacekeepers said.

Troops entered the home of Rajko Banduka in the northeastern town of Bijeljina at about 3:00 a.m (0100 GMT) and searched it for several hours, EUFOR spokeswoman Mandy McBain said.

Banduka is a former military associate of Ratko Mladic and is believed to have links with Mladic's "financial and logistical support network," she added.

At the same time, peacekeepers also searched the home of Banduka's relative Radoslav some six kilometers north-west of Bijeljina.

Ordered by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in The Hague, the operation was aimed at "looking for information which could assist the ongoing search for Ratko Mladic."

"Material was removed from both properties and will be further examined" by EUFOR, McBain said.

Mladic, 67, is wanted for genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity for his role as the Bosnian Serb military chief in the former Yugoslav republic's inter-ethnic 1992-1995 conflict.

Last July, Radovan Karadzic, 63, the wartime Bosnian Serb political leader, was captured in Belgrade. He is awaiting trial before the ICTY in The Hague.

Mladic is linked to some of the worst atrocities in Europe since World War II, notably the 1995 Srebrenica massacre of 8,000 Bosnian Muslims and the siege of Sarajevo that claimed more than 10,000 lives.

He is one of two remaining fugitives wanted by the ICTY who is still at large and is believed to be hiding in Serbia. The other still is former Croatian Serb leader Goran Hadzic, 50.