Serbia's National Security Council said it is offering a $1.4 million reward for information leading to the capture of wanted war crimes suspect Gen. Ratko Mladic. Rasim Ljajic, who heads the council, said there is also a $355,000 reward for Goran Hadzic, a former rebel leader, and Stojan Zupljanin, a Bosnian Serb police officer. The three fugitives are believed to be hiding in Serbia.
The U.S. already has a $5 million reward available for information leading to the arrest of Mladic and political leader Radovan Karadzic. Ljajic says he does not believe Karadzic is in Serbia and therefore is not offering a reward for his capture.
A book by Florence Hartmann, a former spokeswoman for the U.N. war crimes division, alleged that the United States and Russia intervened in Serbian affairs regarding the fugitive Radovan Karadzic. Hartmann claims that the two countries made a secret deal with Karadzic to not detain him in exchange for his disappearance. Llajic stated that Hartmann's allegations appear accurate.
Karadzic vanished in 1998 after stepping down from his official government duties. He, as well as Mladic, are on the run for allegations regarding the massacre at Srebrenica, in which 8,000 Muslim men and boys were killed in 1995.
Croatian officials expressed frustrations over the sentencing of Serbian officers accused of war time atrocities. Mile Mrksic, a Serbian army officer, was sentenced to 20 years for complicity in the deaths of 194 Croatians on Nov. 20, 1991. It is alleged that between Nov. 18 and Nov. 20, around 200 people were killed in a prison camp near Vukovar, Croatia. It marked the first mass killing in the conflicts in the former Yugoslavia.
Two other officers, Veselin Sljivancanin and Miroslav Radic, were convicted of aiding in the alleged massacre. Sljivancanin was sentenced to five years and Radic was acquitted for time served. Croatian officials had hoped for maximum sentences in all cases, saying the leniency of the courts “did not serve justice.”
Carla del Ponte, chief prosecutor in the Yugoslavia cases, will present her findings on Serbian cooperation with the war crimes court before the European Union later this month. Serbia is bidding for membership to the EU, which holds cooperation as a contingent of membership.
Croatian officials, meanwhile, are petitioning the U.N. General Assembly on Monday to re-examine the decisions of the tribunal in its recent sentences.
