Mladic still hiding in Serbia

UN investigators believe accused genocide mastermind Ratko Mladic is still hiding in Serbia and a top prosecutor called on the government to step up the hunt for the former Bosnian Serb general.

“Serbia’s failure to capture the two remaining fugitives – Ratko Mladic and Goran Hadzic – is one of our foremost concerns,” Serge Brammertz told the UN Security Council.

The chief prosecutor for the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) said the Belgrade authorities must also get tough in their handling of the networks that have hidden Mr Mladic and Mr Hadzic since the Balkan wars of the 1990s.

Mr Mladic tops the ICTY list of war crimes suspects, with a $19 million reward offered by Serbia and the United States for information leading to his arrest.

“Serbia is the last place that he was seen in 2006 and this is our main hypothesis,” Mr Brammertz told reporters after briefing the Security Council.

He said reports that Mr Mladic had fled abroad were always followed.

“There has been a wrong Mladic arrested in Belgium and another one in Austria, so of course we are working on other information,” he said.