War Crimes

A recent 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.  Rasim Llajic, a Serbian government official in charge of that countries relationship with the war crimes tribunal, stated that Hartmann’s allegations appear accurate.  Karadzic vanished in 1998 after stepping down from his official government duties.  He, as well as Ratko Mladic, are on the run for allegations regarding the massacre at Srebrenica, in which 8,000 Muslim men and boys were killed in 1995.

Richard Holbrooke, U.S. special envoy to the region and the architect of the Dayton peace accords settling the Bosnian conflict, denied the allegations of aiding Karadzic.  “What a surprise”, Holbrooke said in an interview with the Associated Press, “This is old-style Soviet disinformation.”  Holbrooke claims that Karadzic himself had started the rumors of U.S. and Soviet cooperation in order to “save face.”   The U.S. has a $5-million bounty for information leading to the capture of Karadzic.

Cheif U.N. war crimes prosecutor for the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY), Carla Del Ponte, has made repeated statements claiming E.U. and NATO members lack the political will to apprehend the remaining fugitives, including Karadzic and Mladic.  Del Ponte was in the region last week and Hartmann’s allegations are sure to be on the table in discussions with Serbian leaders.

Del Ponte’s term expires in December.  She is expected to be replaced by Serge Brammertz, who is currently the chief investigator in the U.N. tribunal examining the assassination of former Lebanese prime minister, Rafik al-Hariri.   The entire senior law staff at The Hague, however, has threatened to resign if Brammertz is appointed.  The lawyers are advocating for the appointment of Del Ponte’s deputy, David Tolbert, who has more than nine years experience.

UPI/AP

This entry was posted on Monday, September 24th, 2007 at 7:17 am and is filed under Cases, Bosnia/FRY. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.