Serbia vowed Tuesday to arrest the two remaining war crimes suspects if they do not give themselves up to the UN war crimes tribunal in The Hague following the arrest of former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic.
Serbian Defense Minister Dragan Sutanovac said that the arrest of Karadzic shows that the new Serbian government is determined to honor its domestic and international legal obligations concerning the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY).
"No one can doubt any more that the government will uncompromisingly resolve the inherited problems," Sutanovac said in a statement.
A combination photo shows Bosnian Serb wartime leader and indicted war crimes suspect Radovan Karadzic (L) in an undated recent file photo and (R) attending a parliamentary session in the Republik of Srpska in Bosanski Samac February 13, 1995. "I appeal to the remaining ICTY indictees to surrender themselves voluntarily, because that is in the interests of the state as well as in their own interests," said Sutanovac, a senior member of President Boris Tadic's Democratic Party which dominates the new pro-EU government.
The only other suspects still at large are former Bosnian Serb army chief Ratko Mladic and Croatian Serb leader Goran Hadzic.
Dusan Ignjatovic, director of the Serbian government office for cooperation with the ICTY, said on Tuesday that it is quite certain that the remaining two fugitive indictees of the ICTY will also be taken before that court.
So far, 42 indictees have been transferred from Serbia to the tribunal, and there is no reason for the remaining two not to surrender, he said.
Ignjatovic said that Karadzic's arrest itself had come as a surprise, but he could not speak about the details of the locating and arrest of Karadzic because "certain other actions must not be placed in jeopardy."
Karadzic's arrest was a clear sign of Serbia's new pro-Western government, which was sworn in two weeks ago, to give in to EU demands in a bid to speed up its EU accession efforts.
Karadzic, aged 63, has been on the run since July 1995, when he was indicted by the ICTY together with his wartime military commander Mladic. Both face charges of genocide and other war crimes against Muslims, Croats and other non-Serb civilians during Bosnia's 1992-1995 war.
Source:Xinhua
Comment
Tell A Friend
Print Format
Save Article