scoone
02-11-2004, 02:11 PM
Wed February 11, 2004 11:27 AM ET
By Douglas Hamilton
BELGRADE (*******) - U.N. war crimes prosecutor Carla Del Ponte on Wednesday asserted that top Bosnian Serb fugitive Radovan Karadzic was living in Belgrade, drawing an immediate challenge from Serbs to "tell us the address."
If widely credited, her charge could wreck Serbia's efforts to prove it is cooperating as best it can with The Hague tribunal to capture the genocide suspect, an assurance on which depend continued U.S. aid and vital access to international funds.
"I received just last week information from a credible source that even Karadzic is now in Belgrade," Del Ponte told reporters in Brussels. "So Belgrade is now a safe haven for our fugitives... Karadzic is now residing in Belgrade."
Del Ponte, a high-profile hate figure for many Serbs, named no source for the information and gave no details of the alleged whereabouts of the former Bosnian Serb wartime leader in Serbia's capital city of 1.6 million people.
The Interior Ministry said "Serbia does not have information which would confirm the claims of Mrs Carla del Ponte."
Her allegation was likely to further jangle nerves in Serbia, where party leaders are trying to pick up the pieces from an inconclusive election six weeks ago and form a viable coalition.
One radio report said a new election would be set this week.
The ultra-nationalist Radical Party, whose voters consider the U.N. tribunal an anti-Serb conspiracy that must be defied, came top in the December 28 election but so far has been ostracized from government. Analysts say it may do even better in new poll.
PROVING A NEGATIVE
Del Ponte frequently charges that Karadzic's ex-commander and fellow war crimes fugitive, General Ratko Mladic, lives in Serbia while its authorities look the other way. Belgrade's denials are just as frequent.
Serbia's caretaker prime minister, reformist Zoran Zivkovic, told ******* Del Ponte had never given "either information or any other kind of help which would lead to locating or catching the suspects" or prove they were not on Serbian land.
Until now, Karadzic's pursuers said he had probably shifted hideouts in mountainous Bosnia and Montenegro regularly since 1997.
Earlier this month, Del Ponte said NATO troops who raided Karadzic's former headquarters town of Pale in Bosnia in January had been just two hours behind the fugitive. She predicted he would be caught "this year," as she did in 2003 and 2002.
Radical Party chief Tomislav Nikolic said sarcastically that if Karadzic were in Belgrade the "pro-American government... would rush to hand him over (and) extradite him in the blink of an eye."
"Why doesn't she tell us the address? How can it be proven he's not hiding here? She might as well say he's in London," Nikolic told *******.
Dusan Stojicic of Bosnia's hardline Serb Democratic Party (SDS), founded by Karadzic, said Del Ponte was making another untestable assertion under the heading "I have confidential information but I cannot reveal it."
The Hague tribunal's indictments against Karadzic and Mladic accuse them of responsibility for genocide in the siege of Sarajevo and the massacre of Srebrenica, war crimes which claimed a total of 20,000 lives in the 1992-95 Bosnia war.
In U.S. eyes, their capture and trial would complete the tribunal's work. Britain's Guardian newspaper on Wednesday said Washington and London were seeking to curb the powers of Del Ponte and "Del Ponte is angry at the fresh attempt to rein her in."
http://www.*******.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=worldNews&storyID=4335944&pageNumber=1
By Douglas Hamilton
BELGRADE (*******) - U.N. war crimes prosecutor Carla Del Ponte on Wednesday asserted that top Bosnian Serb fugitive Radovan Karadzic was living in Belgrade, drawing an immediate challenge from Serbs to "tell us the address."
If widely credited, her charge could wreck Serbia's efforts to prove it is cooperating as best it can with The Hague tribunal to capture the genocide suspect, an assurance on which depend continued U.S. aid and vital access to international funds.
"I received just last week information from a credible source that even Karadzic is now in Belgrade," Del Ponte told reporters in Brussels. "So Belgrade is now a safe haven for our fugitives... Karadzic is now residing in Belgrade."
Del Ponte, a high-profile hate figure for many Serbs, named no source for the information and gave no details of the alleged whereabouts of the former Bosnian Serb wartime leader in Serbia's capital city of 1.6 million people.
The Interior Ministry said "Serbia does not have information which would confirm the claims of Mrs Carla del Ponte."
Her allegation was likely to further jangle nerves in Serbia, where party leaders are trying to pick up the pieces from an inconclusive election six weeks ago and form a viable coalition.
One radio report said a new election would be set this week.
The ultra-nationalist Radical Party, whose voters consider the U.N. tribunal an anti-Serb conspiracy that must be defied, came top in the December 28 election but so far has been ostracized from government. Analysts say it may do even better in new poll.
PROVING A NEGATIVE
Del Ponte frequently charges that Karadzic's ex-commander and fellow war crimes fugitive, General Ratko Mladic, lives in Serbia while its authorities look the other way. Belgrade's denials are just as frequent.
Serbia's caretaker prime minister, reformist Zoran Zivkovic, told ******* Del Ponte had never given "either information or any other kind of help which would lead to locating or catching the suspects" or prove they were not on Serbian land.
Until now, Karadzic's pursuers said he had probably shifted hideouts in mountainous Bosnia and Montenegro regularly since 1997.
Earlier this month, Del Ponte said NATO troops who raided Karadzic's former headquarters town of Pale in Bosnia in January had been just two hours behind the fugitive. She predicted he would be caught "this year," as she did in 2003 and 2002.
Radical Party chief Tomislav Nikolic said sarcastically that if Karadzic were in Belgrade the "pro-American government... would rush to hand him over (and) extradite him in the blink of an eye."
"Why doesn't she tell us the address? How can it be proven he's not hiding here? She might as well say he's in London," Nikolic told *******.
Dusan Stojicic of Bosnia's hardline Serb Democratic Party (SDS), founded by Karadzic, said Del Ponte was making another untestable assertion under the heading "I have confidential information but I cannot reveal it."
The Hague tribunal's indictments against Karadzic and Mladic accuse them of responsibility for genocide in the siege of Sarajevo and the massacre of Srebrenica, war crimes which claimed a total of 20,000 lives in the 1992-95 Bosnia war.
In U.S. eyes, their capture and trial would complete the tribunal's work. Britain's Guardian newspaper on Wednesday said Washington and London were seeking to curb the powers of Del Ponte and "Del Ponte is angry at the fresh attempt to rein her in."
http://www.*******.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=worldNews&storyID=4335944&pageNumber=1