Del Ponte slams Serbia’s slow cooperation with war crimes tribunal

“The situation today is better than it was a year ago” but more progress is needed before Serbia can move closer to the EU, the chief UN war crimes prosecutor, Carla del Ponte, told EU foreign ministers in Luxembourg on 15 October.

“I cannot give a positive assessment of full cooperation until Ratko Mladic is arrested and transferred to the Hague,” Del Ponte said, in a reference to the former Bosnian Serb military commander, believed to be in hiding in Serbia. She criticised the fact that “a number of very important outstanding requests for assistance” remain and that the Serbian authorities continue to deny access to “crucial archives”. 

The EU says it will only sign the new pre-membership association agreement once Belgrade cooperates fully with the Hague tribunal, leading to the arrest and transfer of the remaining war crimes indictees. 

The prosecutor said she was absolutely convinced that Serbia had “the means to locate and arrest the fugitives”, and announced she would return to Belgrade on October 25 to re-assess the level of cooperation. 

The EU broke off negotiations with Serbia in May 2006 after Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica broke a promise to arrest Mladic. Talks resumed this year after a reformist coalition took office in April. 

Mladic is wanted on genocide charges over the 1995 Srebrenica massacre of some 7,000 Bosnian Muslims. Serbia last Friday offered a 1.42 million dollar reward for information leading to his capture. 

EU Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn, along with EU foreign ministers, had requested Del Ponte to debrief them on what progress, if any, Serbia’s government was making to meet international demands. 

Rehn said the EU would await Del Ponte’s end-of-October visit before making a decision on whether to go ahead with the signing of the accord. “The findings of Ms. Del Ponte’s visit to Belgrade will be strongly taken into account at the end of the month,” Rehn said. 

Although acknowledging the efforts so far made by Serbia to bring fugitives to justice, he called for additional measures to be taken. “It’s important Serbia now intensifies its search operations (and) gives full access to archived documents,” Rehn said. 

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