Post by kapetan on Sept 11, 2008 9:19:38 GMT -5
11 September 2008 Belgrade _ The fingerprint record of top war crimes fugitive Ratko Mladic has disappeared, a Serbian minister confirms.
Rasim Ljajic, Serbia’s Labour Minister and the head of the national Council for Cooperation with The Hague tribunal, told Belgrade’s B92 network that parts of the record that Mladic submitted when applying for his identification documents in Serbia in 1999, could not be found.
The missing part of the records includes his fingerprint.
Confirming a report carried by the Belgrade daily Blic, Ljajic regretted the information was publicised but added it would be investigated.
Blic reported that the new head of the Security Information Agency, BIA, Sasa Vukadinovic, was enraged when he found out that classified information on the search for Mladic had been leaked.
The news came during the two-day visit of The Hague tribunal’s Chief Prosecutor Serge Brammertz which got underway on Wednesday.
His report will be crucial in influencing a European Union decision on whether to unblock an interim trade deal with Belgrade, a part of a key pre-membership deal known as the Stabilisation and Association Agreement, which the European Union signed with Serbia at the end of April.
The fingerprint, taken when a person applies for identification and residency, is considered a key proof in identifying suspects who, like Stojan Zupljanin and Radovan Karadzic, arrested in June and July respectively, assumed a false identity to evade justice.
Following their extradition to the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, at The Hague, Serbia has to arrest two more fugitives, Mladic and the Croatian Serb rebel leader Goran Hadzic, in order to open its door to further European integration.
Ljajic, who admitted he was “taken by surprise several times with the circumstances that led to the arrests of the war crimes suspects,” said there was information on the whereabouts of Mladic and Hadzic and that “everything is being done to locate them.”
“Ratko Mladic has been in Serbia for long time, but we currently do not have enough information to prove this,” Ljajic said, adding that nevertheless, “we work like he is here.”
Rasim Ljajic, Serbia’s Labour Minister and the head of the national Council for Cooperation with The Hague tribunal, told Belgrade’s B92 network that parts of the record that Mladic submitted when applying for his identification documents in Serbia in 1999, could not be found.
The missing part of the records includes his fingerprint.
Confirming a report carried by the Belgrade daily Blic, Ljajic regretted the information was publicised but added it would be investigated.
Blic reported that the new head of the Security Information Agency, BIA, Sasa Vukadinovic, was enraged when he found out that classified information on the search for Mladic had been leaked.
The news came during the two-day visit of The Hague tribunal’s Chief Prosecutor Serge Brammertz which got underway on Wednesday.
His report will be crucial in influencing a European Union decision on whether to unblock an interim trade deal with Belgrade, a part of a key pre-membership deal known as the Stabilisation and Association Agreement, which the European Union signed with Serbia at the end of April.
The fingerprint, taken when a person applies for identification and residency, is considered a key proof in identifying suspects who, like Stojan Zupljanin and Radovan Karadzic, arrested in June and July respectively, assumed a false identity to evade justice.
Following their extradition to the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, at The Hague, Serbia has to arrest two more fugitives, Mladic and the Croatian Serb rebel leader Goran Hadzic, in order to open its door to further European integration.
Ljajic, who admitted he was “taken by surprise several times with the circumstances that led to the arrests of the war crimes suspects,” said there was information on the whereabouts of Mladic and Hadzic and that “everything is being done to locate them.”
“Ratko Mladic has been in Serbia for long time, but we currently do not have enough information to prove this,” Ljajic said, adding that nevertheless, “we work like he is here.”