Reuters AlertNet Lite - Karadzic, Mladic should not evade trial-U.S. envoy

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Karadzic, Mladic should not evade trial-U.S. envoy

02 Jan 2007 13:41:26 GMT
Source: Reuters

SARAJEVO, Jan 2 (Reuters) - Two top Bosnian Serb war crimes suspects should still face an international court if captured after the closure of the U.N. war crimes court in three years, a U.S. envoy was quoted as saying on Tuesday.

If Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic were caught before 2010, the court in The Hague would remain open to try them, Clint Williamson, U.S. ambassador-at-large for war crimes, told the Sarajevo newspaper Dnevni Avaz.

"But if that didn't happen, there needs to be found a body in the international system that will try them," he said.

"The only absolutely unacceptable thing for the government of the United States is for them to be tried, for example, in Belgrade, that is before local courts," Williamson added.

The Hague court has started transferring middle- and lower-level cases to courts in Bosnia, Croatia and Serbia as part of its closure strategy.

Its Chief Prosecutor Carla del Ponte asked the U.N. Security Council last month to extend the life of the court until key suspects were brought to justice, but the council has not yet responded.

Karadzic, Bosnian Serb leader in the 1992-95 war, and his wartime military chief Ratko Mladic top the list of six remaining fugitives who are all Serbs, four from Bosnia, one from Croatia and one from Serbia proper.

The duo were indicted twice for genocide over the war-long siege of Sarajevo and for the July 1995 massacre of 8,000 Bosnian Muslims in the U.N. "safe area" of Srebrenica.

Del Ponte says that the army has sheltered Mladic in Serbia while Karadzic's whereabouts are a mystery.

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Last updated:Wed Jan 3 00:57:16 2007