7.15pm _____
Mladic arrest operation 'under way' Mark Oliver and agencies Tuesday February 21, 2006 A 1992 photograph of the Bosnian Serb general Ratko Mladic. Photograph: Srdjan Ilic/AP A 1992 photograph of the Bosnian Serb general Ratko Mladic. Photograph: Srdjan Ilic/AP An operation was underway tonight to capture the fugitive Serbian general Ratko Mladic - one of the world's most wanted war crimes suspects for his role in the Bosnian war. A senior Serbian state security official told the Associated Press that he been located and authorities were negotiating his surrender, some 10 years after he was first indicted by the UN. Gen Mladic was located but "he has yet not been arrested," said the official, who is close to the arrest operation. The commander was in charge of Serbian troops accused of ethnic cleansing in the 1992-1995 war and the massacre at Srebrenica in 1995. _____ Earlier tonight, Srdjan Djuric, a spokesman for Serbia's prime minister, Vojislav Kostunica, denied there had already been an arrest, and said these reports were a "manipulation" and an attempt to derail Gen Mladic's capture. The spokesman denied reports in the Bosnian media and from Serbia's state-run news agency Tanjug that Gen Mladic was already in custody. Tanjug quoted Bosnian Serb BN television as saying Gen Mladic was "being transported" to the US-run air force base in Tuzla, north-eastern Bosnia, en route for war crimes tribunal in The Hague. This was the same route used when former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic was extradited to the Hague in 2001. A later, contradictory report said he had been detained in Belgrade. The prosecutors office at the UN said they had no information about an arrest. A spokeswoman repeated recent assertions by the prosecution that that the general was in Serbia in the "immediate reach of the authorities". Gen Mladic was indicted by the UN war crimes tribunal in 1995. He is accused of genocide over his troops' massacre of 8,000 Muslim boys and men in Srebrenica - the worst single atrocity in Europe since the second world war - and for the 1992-95 siege of Sarajevo, which claimed 12,000 lives. He was Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic's army chief throughout the Bosnian war. With Mr Karadzic, who is still a fugitive, Gen Mladic has come to symbolise the Serb campaign of ethnic cleansing of Croats and Muslims. If Gen Mladic has indeed been detained, the place of his arrest could have great political ramifications. Serbian officials will be hoping he was not held within their borders, so as to avoid allegations he was living in Serbia with government and army help and that he could have been arrested earlier. Serbian newspapers had speculated this morning that Belgrade would secretly move Gen Mladic into Bosnia. Serbia had been under tremendous pressure from the EU and the US to capture the general. There has been intense speculation he would be arrested before the end of the month, in time to avoid the suspension of talks seen as a precursor towards eventually joining the EU. The end of the month is a deadline for a report on how well Belgrade is cooperating with the UN tribunal. After the war, Gen Mladic, who is still regarded as a hero by many in the Serbian army, lived freely in Belgrade for a period but disappeared when Mr Milosevic was arrested. There had been indications in recent months that the net was closing in on Gen Mladic. In December last year, police revealed they had intercepted a mobile phone call he had made to a friend and officials said they had "never been closer" to finding him. Security officials said the intercepted call had helped authorities locate his aides who know where he was hiding. There were claims at the time that the general was negotiating with the Serbian authorities about giving himself up to the UN tribunal. In recent months, a Serbian newspaper, Glas Javnosti, reported that Gen Mladic's pension payments had now been stopped - which was interpreted as a another step towards his handover by Serbia's democratically elected government. Pressure intensified on Serbia over Gen Mladic following the arrest last year of Ante Gotovina, the Croatian war crimes suspect who was detained in the Canary Islands after investigators traced his mobile phone records. The arrest came after the UK, in particular, insisted that Croatia had to give up Gen Gotovina before it could join the EU. Tonight the former Europe minister Denis MacShane, who was minister in charge of the Balkans between 2001 and 2005, called the news about Gen Mladic's location "a decisive moment in Balkans history". [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] -------------------------- Want to discuss this topic? Head on over to our discussion list, [EMAIL PROTECTED] -------------------------- Brooks Isoldi, editor [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.intellnet.org Post message: osint@yahoogroups.com Subscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] *** FAIR USE NOTICE. This message contains copyrighted material whose use has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. 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