A failure to arrest Bosnian Serb military chief Ratko Mladic, wanted for genocide and war crimes, would be the "worst of signals" for international justice, the UN war crimes prosecutor Serge Brammertz said on Monday.

The former Bosnian Serb military commander, 68, is the most wanted fugitive of the International Criminal Court for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) based in The Hague.

"The non-arrest of Mladic would be the worst of signals for international justice" and "to those still out there", the court's prosecutor Serge Brammertz told reporters.

It "would mean you can sit out international justice over time," he said, adding it would have an impact "broader than the ICTY".

Brammertz said Mladic's capture was the priority of his office and vital for the stability of the Balkans.
It would be a "disaster for the victims" if he were not judged, he said.

Mladic is accused of masterminding the 44-month siege of Sarajevo that left 10,000 people dead in 1995 and the July massacre that year of around 8,000 Muslim men and boys in Srebrenica.

He faces charges of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity and has been on the run since the war ended in 1995.

The prosecutor visited Srebrenica for the first time last summer. He spoke with over a hundred members of the NGO ‘Mothers of Screbrenica’. He emphasised that for those women the massacre is not ‘a crime committed fifteen years ago’, but is a central part of their lives.

EU
“Political support is very important”, Brammertz says. He supports the EU policy of ‘conditionality’ towards Serbia, which involves the republic’s rapprochement to the Union being dependent upon its cooperation with the ICTY.

His comments are against a backdrop of growing pressure in the EU to reward Serbia for watering down a hard-line resolution on Kosovo's independence at the United Nations.

Serbia is being blocked from joining the EU until Brammertz says Belgrade is fully co-operating with his office.

(Source: AP)

Download the print version of the International Justice Tribune 113 (PDF file)

Subscribe to the International Justice Tribune