“It is of course important for all potential war criminals and all indicted war criminals to know that they will eventually get caught.”

Richard Goldstone made his statement in an exclusive interview with Radio Netherlands Worldwide. .
The native South African was the first chief prosecutor of the Yugoslavia Tribunal in The Hague between 1994 and 1996. It was Goldstone who formulated the charges against Bosnian-Serb general Ratko Mladic and the Bosnian-Serb president Radovan Karadzic.

Frustrating
Mr Goldstone explained to RNW how he put together the indictments:
“Our police was to try and indict the most senior people, the most responsible and the most guilty. And Karadzic and Mladic were on the top of our list along with Milosevic and it was of course very frustrating and very disappointing to have to wait all these years; 13 in the case of Karadzic and 16 in the case of Mladic.”

Mr Goldstone believes Mladic will be flown to The Hague soon and be put on trial. He said he would love to attend the trial but had a lot of travels ahead of him and would not be able to come to the Netherlands

Hadzic
There is now just one more person on the most-wanted list of the Yugoslavia Tribunal: Goran Hadzic, who was a Serb political leader in Croatia in the 1990s.

Richard Goldstone: 'I hope he will also be arrested soon. This is certainly going in that direction – what is very important is that the authorities in the countries concerned realise eventually that it is in their interests to make these arrests.”

(gsh)

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