Serbian General Arrested

THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) – Authorities in Montenegro on Sunday arrested a former Serbian police general wanted for murder and persecution of ethnic Albanians in Kosovo, a spokesman for the Yugoslav war crimes tribunal announced.Vlastimir Djordjevic, Serbia’s assistant interior minister and chief of the Public Security Department from 1997 to 2001 and a close aide of former Serb President Milosevic, was arrested by Montenegro police and was to be transferred to the Hague-based court, said tribunal spokesman Anton Nikiforov.It was the second arrest in just over two weeks of a fugitive from the Balkan wars of the 1990s, leaving only four men on the run including former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic and his wartime military commander Gen. Ratko Mladic.The arrest June 1 of Zdravko Tolimir prompted the European Union to resume pre-membership talks with Serbia that had been suspended last year over what the EU called Belgrade’s lack of cooperation in hunting down war crimes suspects.Mr. Djordjevic’s arrest “was carried out in cooperation between the office of the prosecutor, Montenegrin authorities and Serbia and it is a sign of the good cooperation we established on a regional level,” said Nikiforov. “We want to praise Montenegrin police and Serb authorities for another successful operation.”Montenegrin police did not immediately confirm the arrest, which was believed to have taken place in the Adriatic Sea resort town of Budva.The U.N. war crimes prosecutor for the former Yugoslavia, Carla Del Ponte, had recently claimed Mr. Djordjevic was hiding in Russia.Serb authorities have been reluctant to pursue war crimes suspects for over a decade. But under intense international pressure they have helped persuade many fugitives to surrender, and more than two dozen suspects have given themselves up in recent years. The court has indicted 161 people since it was created in 1993.Mr. Djordjevic is accused together with six other high-ranking Serb officials of planning and instigating crimes in Kosovo in the first half of 1999 including the forced deportation of 800,000 Kosovars, and the killings of hundreds of ethnic Albanians who had “no active part in hostilities,” according to his indictment.The other six suspects are already on trial at the tribunal, facing possible life sentences if convicted. Also on trial is former Kosovo prime minister and rebel leader Ramush Haradinaj, accused of crimes against Serbs in the province.Prosecutors say that Serb authorities unleashed a terror campaign aimed at driving ethnic Albanians out of Kosovo to ensure continued Belgrade control of the province.“This purpose was to be achieved by criminal means consisting of a widespread or systematic campaign of terror and violence that included deportations, murders, forcible transfers and persecutions directed at the Kosovo Albanian population,” according to court papers.The campaign was finally halted by NATO airstrikes. Since then, the province of 2 million people, of whom 90 percent are ethnic Albanians, has been run by the U.N. and patrolled by NATO troops.U.N. special envoy Martti Ahtisaari has recommended independence for Kosovo under international supervision but the Security Council has yet to vote on the proposal.America and the European Union back Kosovo’s bid for independence.But this it vehemently opposed by Serbia which is backed by Russia. Moscow contends independence would set a dangerous precedent for the world’s other breakaway regions.___Associated Press writer Dusan Stojanovic in Belgrade, Serbia, contributed to this report.

Serbian General Arrested

Serbian General Arrested

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