The fate of "most wanted" war crimes fugitive Ratko Mladic remained unclear yesterday as Serbian media reported he was closer to custody than ever since being indicted for genocide a decade ago, despite the government's denial of his arrest.
Conflicting reports that the ex-Bosnian Serb general was located, arrested or even already on his way to The Hague flurried the Serbian capital late on Tuesday and dominated newspapers yesterday.
However, the Serbian government and police denied he was arrested, as did the chief prosecutor at the UN war crimes tribunal in The Hague, Carla Del Ponte.
PHOTO: AFP
"Mladic arrested," read the headline on the front page of nationalist daily Glas Javnosti, with the general's picture across the page.
"Ratko Mladic and his bodyguard were arrested in a Belgrade apartment, where negotiations on his voluntary surrender had been previously held," the daily said, quoting a source close to Serbian authorities.
But the largest-circulation daily, Vecernje Novosti only said that the noose tightened on the fugitive as "all political preparations for the arrest are completed and Mladic is given only a little bit more time to decide to surrender," or he would be arrested by special police forces.
The influential pro-government Politika daily cited anonymous sources as saying "the operation of capturing Mladic started around 3:30am [2:30am GMT] on Tuesday in New Belgrade, nearby a luxurious hotel," but stopped short of reporting the end of the operation.
Some Serbian and Bosnian Serb media reported that Mladic had been located at Cer mountain, some 100km west of Belgrade, and negotiations were underway on his surrender. All media, however, published the government spokesman's denial that the fugitive had been apprehended.
"The news that Mladic was arrested was not true," Srdjan Djuric said, adding that the report "is manipulation that harms as well as hinders the Serbian government's efforts to bring the cooperation with The Hague [war crimes] tribunal to a close."
Previously, independent Serbian B92 radio quoted several unofficial sources as saying that Mladic, who is wanted for some of the worst atrocities committed during the 1992-'95 war in Bosnia, had been captured in Belgrade before being transferred to an air base at the northern Bosnian town of Tuzla.
The station yesterday still stood by its report despite all the denials.
A former senior secret police official told reporters late on Tuesday that an operation to locate and catch Mladic was still underway, but "so far without any result."
The 62-year-old former Bosnian Serb military chief was indicted in 1995 over the three-and-a-half year siege of Sarajevo and the July 1995 Srebrenica massacre of 8,000 Muslim men and boys, considered the single worst atrocity in Europe since World War II.
Besides Mladic, the only remaining war crimes suspects from the wars that shattered former Yugoslavia in the mid-1990s are his wartime political leader, Radovan Karadzic, and four other ethnic Serbs.
Reports of his impending capture follow mounting pressure from the international community for Serbia to bring him before the Hague-based International Criminal Tribunal for former Yugoslavia.
The Serbian government has been giving strong signals that the net is closing on Mladic after being clearly told by top international officials that talks on its closer ties with the EU would be frozen if Belgrade failed to deliver him by the end of February.
Mladic had lived almost openly in Belgrade until the October 2000 ouster of former strongman Slobodan Milosevic and hid throughout the country under military protection until 2002, according to a recent admission of the authorities.
Del Ponte has kept claiming that he was still in hiding on Serbian soil with the help of the military. Belgrade authorities have persistently denied any knowledge of his whereabouts.
RARE EVENT: While some cultures have a negative view of eclipses, others see them as a chance to show how people can work together, a scientist said Stargazers across a swathe of the world marveled at a dramatic red “Blood Moon” during a rare total lunar eclipse in the early hours of yesterday morning. The celestial spectacle was visible in the Americas and Pacific and Atlantic oceans, as well as in the westernmost parts of Europe and Africa. The phenomenon happens when the sun, Earth and moon line up, causing our planet to cast a giant shadow across its satellite. But as the Earth’s shadow crept across the moon, it did not entirely blot out its white glow — instead the moon glowed a reddish color. This is because the
Romania’s electoral commission on Saturday excluded a second far-right hopeful, Diana Sosoaca, from May’s presidential election, amid rising tension in the run-up to the May rerun of the poll. Earlier this month, Romania’s Central Electoral Bureau barred Calin Georgescu, an independent who was polling at about 40 percent ahead of the rerun election. Georgescu, a fierce EU and NATO critic, shot to prominence in November last year when he unexpectedly topped a first round of presidential voting. However, Romania’s constitutional court annulled the election after claims of Russian interference and a “massive” social media promotion in his favor. On Saturday, an electoral commission statement
Chinese authorities increased pressure on CK Hutchison Holdings Ltd over its plan to sell its Panama ports stake by sharing a second newspaper commentary attacking the deal. The Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office on Saturday reposted a commentary originally published in Ta Kung Pao, saying the planned sale of the ports by the Hong Kong company had triggered deep concerns among Chinese people and questioned whether the deal was harming China and aiding evil. “Why were so many important ports transferred to ill-intentioned US forces so easily? What kind of political calculations are hidden in the so-called commercial behavior on the
‘DOWNSIZE’: The Trump administration has initiated sweeping cuts to US government-funded media outlets in a move critics said could undermine the US’ global influence US President Donald Trump’s administration on Saturday began making deep cuts to Voice of America (VOA) and other government-run, pro-democracy programming, with the organization’s director saying all VOA employees have been put on leave. On Friday night, shortly after the US Congress passed its latest funding bill, Trump directed his administration to reduce the functions of several agencies to the minimum required by law. That included the US Agency for Global Media, which houses Voice of America, Radio Free Europe and Asia and Radio Marti, which beams Spanish-language news into Cuba. On Saturday morning, Kari Lake, a former Arizona gubernatorial and US
RSS