UN prosecutor urges more Serbian action on war crimes

(BELGRADE) - UN prosecutor Carla Del Ponte said Friday that Serbia has to take "more concrete action" before she can endorse its cooperation with her war crimes tribunal, a step key to its EU aspirations.

"If more concrete actions are undertaken, I will be able to inform the European Commission and the union's member states that there is progress in Serbia's level of cooperation with my office," Del Ponte said.

At the end of a two-day fact-finding mission to Belgrade, the prosecutor branded as "intolerable" the fact that four Serbs including genocide suspects Ratko Mladic and Radovan Karadzic remained on the run.

Serbia's hopes of signing an accord on closer ties with the European Union hinge on a report Del Ponte is due to hand over to the 27-nation bloc based on her visit.

"Mladic, Karadzic and the remaining fugitives must be arrested and brought to The Hague," Del Ponte said, adding EU conditions were "the sole effective tool" that could lead to their capture.

"We still count on the European Union ... to insist on Serbia's full cooperation with the tribunal as a condition in the pre-accession and accession process," she said.

Del Ponte repeated her long-held assertion that Mladic was in Serbia, demanding his immediate apprehension and transfer to the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY).

"The Stabilisation and Association Agreement process between the EU and Serbia should only be finalised when Ratko Mladic is located or arrested," Del Ponte said.

Serbia has persistently denied knowing the whereabouts of the former Bosnian Serb military commander.

"Del Ponte's claims that Mladic is in Serbia are a method of pressure and not a result of information," Rasim Ljajic, the minister in charge of ICTY cooperation, said on Friday.

"Del Ponte will continue to claim so until Mladic is transferred to the tribunal because both the tribunal and a big part of the international community are convinced he will end up in The Hague only if Serbia remains under permanent pressure," Beta news agency quoted him as saying.

Del Ponte is due to submit her report to EU officials next week in Brussels.

Three of the four remaining war crimes fugitives are believed to be hiding in Serbia.

Chief among them is Mladic, who is accused of genocide over the 1995 Srebrenica massacre of about 8,000 Muslim men and boys -- the worst atrocity in Europe since World War II.

The others thought to be within the reach of Serbian authorities are former Karadzic aide Stojan Zupljanin and ex-Croatian Serb official Goran Hadzic.

Radovan Karadzic, the war-time Bosnian Serb political leader also charged over Srebrenica, is believed to move between Serb-controlled parts of Bosnia and Montenegro.