Security forces searched on Monday for war crimes fugitive Ratko Mladic at a factory in Serbia, whose new government must capture the former Bosnian Serb general in order to speed up its EU accession.
Armed with automatic firearms and dressed in all-black masks and outfits, police surrounded the factory in the southwestern town of Valjevo in the middle of the morning, officials said.
“Under the orders of the war crimes prosecution, the interior ministry conducted a search of the Vujic Valjevo factory,” an interior ministry source said.
“We were verifying information according to which Mladic could be there, but according to the first information, nobody was found,” the source said.
Vujic Valjevo is run by a large Serbian company that manufactures windows and bottled water. Sources said police also searched houses occupied by its management in a bid to find some evidence of financial aid for Mladic while in hiding.
Mladic, 66, is wanted by a UN tribunal for genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity during his time as commander of the Bosnian Serb military forces during the 1992 to 1995 war in Bosnia.
He faces charges relating to the siege of Sarajevo, in which more than 10,000 were killed and the 1995 Srebrenica massacre of some 8,000 Muslim men and boys — Europe’s worst atrocity since World War II.
The wartime Bosnian Serb general has used the Valjevo region as a hideout in the past, a former Serbian police chief said.
He was located there in 2001 after security services intercepted a telephone call, said Goran Petrovic, who used to head Serbia’s secret police, in a report in 2006.
Citing unnamed high-ranking officials from the interior ministry, B92 said the security services were also hunting for people thought to have helped Mladic avoid justice.
Speaking to the media later, the factory’s owners, Vladislav and Vidoje Vujic, whose houses were searched and had some photographs confiscated, denied they had any links with Mladic.
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
HYPOCRISY? The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday asked whether Biden was talking about China or the US when he used the word ‘xenophobic’ US President Joe Biden on Wednesday called for a hike in steel tariffs on China, accusing Beijing of cheating as he spoke at a campaign event in Pennsylvania. Biden accused China of xenophobia, too, in a speech to union members in Pittsburgh. “They’re not competing, they’re cheating. They’re cheating and we’ve seen the damage here in America,” Biden said. Chinese steel companies “don’t need to worry about making a profit because the Chinese government is subsidizing them so heavily,” he said. Biden said he had called for the US Trade Representative to triple the tariff rates for Chinese steel and aluminum if Beijing was
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese