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UN prosecutor urges Serbia to follow example of Croatia
www.chinaview.cn 2005-12-09 04:25:59

BELGRADE, Dec. 8 (Xinhua) -- Chief prosecutor of the UN war crimes tribunal, Carla del Ponte, urged on Thursday the Serbian authorities to follow the example of Croatia in tracking down a top war crimes suspect.

Del Ponte said she was certain the Serbian authorities were doing something, but there was "insufficient" cooperation with the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY).

Earlier on Thursday, del Ponte announced that Croatia's most wanted war crimes suspect, general Ante Gotovina, was arrested on Wednesday night in Spain's Canary Islands in close cooperation with Croatian and Spanish authorities.

Gotovina, 50, has been on the run since mid-2001 when the ICTY indicted him for orchestrating the killing of at least 150 ethnic Serbs and the expulsion of about 150,000 others following a 1995 Croatian government offensive to recapture lands seized by rebel Serbs.

Del Ponte said that she has asked Serbian Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica to cooperate with the ICTY following Croatia's model.

The ICTY expects more and better work from Serbia, because it is convinced that top war crimes suspect Ratko Mladic can be found, she said.

Mladic, the former Bosnian Serb army commander, has been indicted by the ICTY for atrocities in the 1992-1995 Bosnian war. Del Ponte had repeatedly accused Serbia and Bosnian Serb's armies of sheltering and protecting Mladic.

Del Ponte was visiting Belgrade to prepare a report to the UN Security Council on Dec. 15 on the cooperation of Serbia-Montenegro with the ICTY.

Serbian Justice Minister Zoran Stojkovic said on Thursday that there was an operational plan for the arrest of Mladic and other ICTY indictees.

"Several state organs are working constantly on this," Stojkovic told a news conference

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