Serbian police made fresh arrests and raided apartments on Friday in the hunt for genocide suspect Ratko Mladic as pressure mounted on Belgrade to bring one of the most-wanted men in Europe to justice.
The police actions came two days after the European Union punished Serbia for failing to hand Mladic over to the United Nations war-crimes tribunal by the end of April by suspending key rapprochement talks with the country.
Since Wednesday, the police have arrested a total of five people — among them three civilians and a retired Bosnian-Serb army officer, Marko Lugonja — in their bid to strangle Mladic’s support network.
The five can be held by authorities for up to 30 days, after which prosecutors must determine whether they face charges for ”helping a person who committed an offence”, justice officials said.
Early on Friday, Serbian police swooped on several apartment buildings in Belgrade with the aim of locating Mladic. One of the flats searched was within close proximity of a house belonging to the Mladic family in the Belgrade suburb of Banovo Brdo.
Squads of special police surrounded the building, access to which was blocked for journalists and other civilians during the operation that lasted until 2pm local time.
Only two police cars and one van could be seen in the distance. Neighbours refused to talk with reporters.
A software company, Impact, belonging to Mladic’s son Darko was also searched, state-run news agency Tanjug reported.
The ultra-nationalist opposition Serbian Radical Party (SRS) said one of its members, Branislav Djokic — who lives in the same housing complex as the Mladic home — was detained for questioning.
Dragan Todorovic of the SRS told the private Beta news agency he was present during a search of Djokic’s house, during which two phone books were seized. Djokic was then taken for questioning and has yet to be released, he added.
Mladic has been on the run since 1995, when the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia based in The Hague charged him with war crimes stemming from the siege of Sarajevo and the Srebrenica massacre.
The Serbian government said on Thursday it has had no knowledge of Mladic’s whereabouts since the end of last year.
However chief UN war-crimes prosecutor Carla Del Ponte upped the pressure on Belgrade, insisting it could have arrested the former general just days ago but failed to do so because of a lack of political will. — AFP
