FROM THE MEDIA

Serbia hunting for top war crimes suspect Mladic, justice minister says
Jun 30, 2005

BELGRADE, Serbia-Montenegro-Serbia's security forces are intensively hunting for top war crimes suspect Ratko Mladic, but have so far failed to locate him despite international help, Serbia's justice minister said Thursday.

"When he is located, he will be extradited" to the U.N. war crimes tribunal in The Hague, Netherlands, Zoran Stojkovic told private B-92 radio. "All services are engaged" in the search, he said.

Stojkovic denied that the government was negotiating with the wartime Bosnian Serb military commander on his peaceful surrender and said a recent pledge by Serbia-Montenegro's defense minister that Mladic will be arrested by September is unrealistic.

Mladic was indicted by the U.N. war crimes tribunal for genocide during Bosnia's war when his troops in 1995 massacred about 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys in Srebrenica, the worst atrocity against civilians in Europe since World War II.

Stojkovic, who was instrumental in negotiating recent surrenders of 14 Serb war crimes suspects to The Hague, said that Serbia's neighbors "and some other" countries are included in the search for Mladic.

"There is no dilemma, we will fulfill our obligations" toward The Hague tribunal, Stojkovic said while refusing to speculate on the time frame when Mladic will be arrested.

Serbian government had earlier pledged to U.S. and European Union officials that it would hunt down Mladic preferably by July 11, the 10th anniversary of the Srebrenica massacre.