Russia’s secret services are shielding Bosnian Serbs wanted by the war crimes tribunal in The Hague for atrocities committed during the Bosnian war, including the massacre at Srebrenica, where more than 8 000 Muslim men and boys were slaughtered.
Gojko Jankovic, a Bosnian Serb who gave himself up to the tribunal yesterday to face accusations of torture and multiple rape, was one of a group of fugitive alleged war criminals living in Russia under official protection.
According to sources at The Hague and other intelligence sources, those still on the run and enjoying protection from the Russian secret services are Vinko Pandurevic and Vujadin Popovic, two senior Bosnian Serb military figures accused of genocide over the massacre at Srebrenica in July 1995.
Jankovic was flown to The Hague on Monday having given himself up in the Bosnian Serb capital of Banja Luka, after four years in Moscow.
There was no conclusive explanation on Monday night as to why Jankovic had turned himself in. A senior diplomat said: ”Jankovic suddenly phoned from Moscow saying he wanted to come in.”
His wife, Milica, suggested personal reasons: a phone call to their son, Boban, in Belgrade, and the belief that he may be able to serve a prison term in Bosnia. Jankovic wanted to convince her husband to ”surrender … for the family”.
Sources at The Hague pointed to pressure from the Bosnian Serb republic, Republika Srpska, ”who are beginning to realise that this is not going to go away”.
The FSB, Russia’s secret service, said on Monday night: ”We know nothing about this, and we have no comment on it.”
There is acute frustration in diplomatic circles with Russia’s attitude, not least because it is a signatory to the Dayton accord, which ended the Bosnian war in December 1995.
”Why they are doing it is not clear. What is clear is that the Russians are helping these people, which is holding the process to ransom,” one senior diplomat said.
During the Bosnian war, Jankovic was sub-commander of military police and a paramilitary leader in the river Drina valley town of Foca, which was hit by violence in 1992, with Muslim families rounded up and driven out or killed by Serbs.
A number of girls and women were kept (along with some other civilians) in a school, a sports hall and a military facility. There, and in a network of apartments and motels, they were subjected to serial sexual assault by Serbian soldiers and paramilitaries.
In 2001, three men were convicted at The Hague in a case which, for the first time, affirmed serial rape as a crime against humanity.
But Jankovic, accused of a series of assaults at the facilities which were detailed in his indictment, slipped the net.
The Guardian can reveal that Jankovic has been living under the protection of the authorities in Russia.
A statement by Jankovic’s wife to the Bosnian Serb republic’s interior ministry has been obtained, in which she describes a voyage to Moscow from eastern Bosnia in December, to meet her husband.
Her account describes a visit largely supervised by a man driving a black bulletproof Mercedes and carrying a FSB identity card. The man produced the card over dinner, but put it away when Jankovic’s interest was roused. He was ”a person of knowledge and experience in police work as he spoke about tapping devices, etc”, the statement said
The man paid the couple’s bills in expensive restaurants each evening of the visit, before taking them home in the early hours to a luxury flat with which Jankovic had been provided.
”I was bothered by his constant presence, and then I realised that he was the one who paid the bills. I got the feeling that Gojko feels very safe in his presence,” said Mrs Jankovic. According to her statement, Jankovic was given Russian citizenship, under a pseudonym.
Sources at The Hague said Popovic, wanted for ”genocide or complicity in genocide” for the Srebrenica massacre, was also hiding in Russia.
The episode was the biggest single carnage in Europe since World War II.
Under the direction of the now fugitive Serb general Ratko Mladic, Bosnian Serb and Serbian soldiers and paramilitaries separated men from women and children while Dutch UN troops watched, and took the men to a series of execution sites.
They also ambushed a column trying to escape through the woods, executing thousands more.
Popovic was assistant commander for security in the Drina corps of the Bosnian Serb army and is accused of being ”a key participant” in the massacre.
Other western intelligence sources named Pandurevic, who was commander of the Zvornik brigade and alleged to be involved in the capture of Srebrenica and the attacks on the column through the woods, as also hiding in Russia
Along with General Radislav Krstic, who has been convicted at The Hague for his role in the massacre, Pandurevic is accused of overseeing the mass murder of hundreds of Muslims in a field near a school at Grbavici and hundreds more at a military farm in Branjevo.
He also allegedly commanded the reburial of bodies in secondary mass graves, in order to try to conceal the extent of the massacre.
Russia’s protection of fugitives can only obstruct efforts to rein in Republika Srpska which was established along with the Muslim-Croat Federation by the Dayton peace agreement. Russia has persistently crossed swords with the UN high representative in Bosnia, Lord Ashdown.
Republika Srpska’s refusal to cooperate with the Hague tribunal has blocked Bosnia’s entry into Nato and led Lord Ashdown to impose two rounds of sanctions. – Guardian Unlimited Â