War-crime hunters

Hunting Ratko —Belgrade & The Hague Preface Ratko Mladic is one of the world’s most wanted men. Monocle meets those trying to arrest the Bosnian Serb general so the UN can try him for war crimes and . We also look at the damage his fugitive status is doing to Serbia’s chances of joining the EU.

writer Adam LeBor photographers Simon de la Court JeroenToirkens Even in his dreams Vladimir Vukcevic cannot forget Ratko Mladic.the Serbian war crimes prosecutor sees the former Bosnian Serb commander standing in a Yugoslav army base. the imagined 01 Mladic is taller and younger than the real one. But his freedom taunts Vukcevic in his dream, just as it does in his waking life. the prosecutor has been coordinat- ing the hunt in Serbia for Mladic since 2006. it is his job to ensure Mladic is arrested and sent to the international Criminal tribunal for the former (iCtY) in the Hague, where he is charged with war crimes, and genocide. a psychologist would doubtless interpret Mladic’s tall and youthful figure as symbolising a more difficult adversary than Vukcevic had expected. “i thought this job would be finished in three or four years, but i was wrong,” he says. grey- haired, neatly barbered with a trim beard and moustache, even at 60, Vukcevic re- tains a youthful vigour. Mladic is accused of the worst atroc- 02 ity in Europe since 1945. in the days after 01 War damage in the Bosnian Serb army captured Sre- downtown Belgrade 02 Judge’s bench at ICTY brenica in July 1995, soldiers under his in The Hague command massacred up to 8,000 Bosnian 03 Vladimir Vukcevic, Muslim men and boys.the eastern Bosn- Serbian war crimes ian town was a UN-declared “Safe area”, prosecutor with a garrison of Dutch peacekeepers. 03    —   War-crime hunters

01 Vukcevic’s office on Ustanicka Street 02 Military Museum at Belgrade’s Kalemegdan fortress 03 File photo of Ratko Mladic in 1993 04 The Ministry of Defence in Belgrade, hit by Nato cruise missiles in 1999 05 Historian Bojan Dimitrejevic 06 Bruno Vekaric, spokesman for Serbia’s war crimes prosecutor 07 Milica Delevic

former political leader of the Serbs in Croatia, who is also on the run. karadzic

01 had grown a long beard, and was working, bizarrely, as an alternative healer. But as a military man Mladic understands secrecy, coded communications and other covert 05 Yugoslavia’s skills needed for a life as a fugitive. they failed to stop the enclave being over- run, failed to protect the male civilians and Lords of War Western officials say that under Sasa even forced out those who had taken Vukadinovic, director of the Bia since Radovan Karadzic Bosnian refuge inside their base. Serb president. Charged 2008, the service is focused on finding “We made a psychological profile of with war crimes, crimes Mladic. But during Slobodan Milosevic’s Mladic. He is a soldier and not prone to against humanity and reign, the security service was a virtual corruption. He took care of his men and 02 genocide. Trial ongoing. state within a state. Jovica Stanisic, its chief in that respect he was a positive person,” Slobodan Milosevic The during theYugoslav wars, is now on trial saysVukcevic.“But his behaviour after the former president of Serbia at the iCtY.Vukcevic says that since 2008 capture of was pathological. and Yugoslavia was charged the Bia has been committed to finding with war crimes, crimes When you see how he treated the other against humanity and Mladic, but before that there “were cer- side, saying that the Serbs have conquered genocide. Died in detention tain obstructions”. Still, these are new the turks and can take revenge on the Ratko Mladic: in The Hague in March 2006. times in Serbia and the net is closing. Balija [a derogatory term for Bosnian the making of a general Jovica Stanisic and Franko Zdravko tolimir, one of Mladic’s Muslims], i think that was a direct incite- Simatovic of Serbian deputies, was arrested in 2007 and is now ment to a massacre and we know the If names decide destiny then Ratko Mladic State Security. Both on trial at the Hague, charged with massacre happened just after. Mladic was was born to fight – “Rat” is Serbian for war. charged with war crimes genocide and war crimes at Srebrenica. and crimes against convincing the women and children that His parents were partisans. His father, in February, Serbian police again raided Nedja, was killed fighting the Croats in humanity. Trial ongoing. nothing was going to happen to them, and Mladic’s home in Belgrade.they found March 1945 when Ratko was two. The war Vujadin Popovic Assistant was giving out chocolates to the children, shaped Mladic’s psyche, leaving a dark commander of security for a false wall concealing his wartime note- throwing them, as if to the dogs.there is sense of unfinished business, for which, 06 Drina Corps of Bosnian books, documents, computer memory footage of him patting the head of a fright- decades later, the men and boys of Serb Army, found guilty of sticks and sim cards. Vukcevic’s team ened boy of 12 or 13. He was also killed.” Srebrenica would pay a terrible price. war crimes, crimes against have advantages not shared by their col- Mladic graduated from military academy in May, Mladic’s family asked a Bel- humanity and genocide. leagues in the Hague, he says. “our in 1965. Intelligent and diligent, he rose Sentenced to life in jail in grade court to declare that he was dead, rapidly up the ranks of the Yugoslav June. Appealing. colleagues there realised very quickly that and so bring closure. the request was People’s Army (JNA). He was a key figure in our capacities are much bigger than they Ljubisa Beara Bosnian the “Vojna Linija” (Military Line), a group of denied. Senior European officials have army’s chief of security, thought. We helped them a lot, we know 03 Serbian army officers loyal to president told moNoCle that the working assump- found guilty of war crimes, the local mentality, how to approach Slobodan Milosevic, who transformed the crimes against humanity tion is Mladic is alive and is probably in JNA into an instrument for building “Greater people and to talk to them, and they and genocide. Sentenced to Serbia or its border regions. three sepa- Serbia”, by ethnically cleansing much of appreciate this.” Vukcevic’s office also life in jail in June. Appealing. rate agencies are working on the search: Croatia and Bosnia. He held much of the prosecutes Serbian war criminals and, as the Serbian intelligence service (Bia), the Bosnian Serb political leadership, such as Ante Gotovina Croatian of September 2010, had sentenced 47 country’s military intelligence and the Radovan Karadzic, in contempt. That commander, charged with people to a total of 620 years in prison. contempt extended to the rules of war and war crimes and crimes police. Western intelligence agencies are the Geneva Conventions. against humanity. Trial investigators are focusing on the also helping. Vukcevic won’t say which The Yugoslav wars were defined by a concluded, verdict awaited. money and medical trails. keeping some- ones, but the Cia and Britain’s mi6 seem murderous, casual brutality. During the siege Biljana Plavsic Bosnian one fed, clothed and housed for years to be the lead candidates. after the arrest of Sarajevo, Mladic ordered his officers to: Serb political leader. demands a complex financial network. of former Bosnian Serb president “Shell the presidency and the parliament. Pleaded guilty to one Mladic is also believed to be suffering Shoot at slow intervals until I order you to charge of crimes against Radovan karadzic in Belgrade in July stop. Target Muslim areas – not many Serbs from medical problems, including the 2008, many expected Mladic to be appre- humanity. Served eight after-effects of a minor stroke, high blood live there... Shell them until they are on the years of 11-year sentence, hended, along with goran Hadzic, a edge of madness.” released October 2009. pressure and kidney stones, all of which 04 07  —       —   War-crime hunters 01 List of indicted persons at ICTY 02 ICTY Trial Chambers II, view from the public gallery 03 ICTY prosecutor Serge Brammertz 04 Kalemegdan Park, Belgrade 05 The Serbian capital lags behind its eastern neighbours

01 02 require medication.the Serbian prose- Prosecuting the cutor frequently sends him messages perpetrators: through the press. “i told him recently war crimes tribunals that generals don’t usually hide in a hole; that since he claims he is innocent the International Criminal only place he can confirm that innocence Tribunal for the former is in court; that he is being selfish to his Yugoslavia 04 05 Founded in 1993 in The family; that he is a coward because he is Hague, the tribunal has days, there is little sense of drama.When but in June, Brammertz said its efforts so hiding behind the whole Serbian people indicted 161 former military moNoCle visits, Zdravko tolimir is on far had produced “few tangible results”. and the country is his hostage.” and political leaders for war trial in courtroom no 3. it is hard to “Everyone is telling me the political will to crimes and crimes against imagine this thin, balding man once find Mladic is there, so i have no reason to Mladic was indicted in 1995, making it a humanity. Everyone tells me the will strutting across the killing fields of Sre- doubt that,” he says. “But if this is really legal obligation for any UN member state International Criminal to find Mladic is there but brenica. But perhaps that is his intention. top priority, you have to devote maximum to arrest him and extradite him to the Tribunal for Rwanda in a large corner office nearby, Serge resources and maximum energy, and as Located in Arusha, Tanzania, we believe influential people iCtY. For the first two years after the and founded in 1994 to try are still supporting him Brammertz is coordinating the interna- we said in our last report, this is not the ended in 1995, his where- the perpetrators of the tional effort to find Mladic. Brammertz case. our hypothesis is that there are still abouts were known to western intelli- genocide in which 800,000 has served as the iCtY’s prosecutor since influential people supporting him.” gence agencies. He was living in a people were killed. It has 2008. a trim 48-year-old, he was previ- military base outside Sarajevo. His arrest, completed 52 cases and ously based in Beirut, heading the UN Beyond the diplomatic negotiating in 22 are in progress. it was feared, would have torn apart the investigation into the assassination of Brussels and newYork, the glacial pace of tentative post-war peace agreement. 03 Special Court for Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri. it the trials and the legal hair-splitting, is the Sierra Leone From there he moved back to Belgrade, Mladic was advised to adopt a lower pro- Set up in Freetown, Sierra Delevic, head of the European integra- is especially important that Mladic is human factor. this year Brammertz was where he lived openly, dining out and at- file and was moved around Yugoslav Leone, in 2002. However, tion office. “People in government see caught this year, the 15th anniversary of invited to Srebrenica by the Mothers of tending football matches, until the octo- army facilities until 2002, when he prob- for security reasons, the trial this as an obligation to the iCtY and the the Srebrenica genocide, both for the vic- Srebrenica, a victims’ support group. ber 2000 revolution that brought down ably returned to Belgrade. From there of former Liberian president eU. But it is also an obligation to our- tims and for justice, he says. But more Many of these mothers and widows are his protector, Milosevic. the trail turns cold. Charles Taylor, who is selves, to deal with the past and to than that, the credibility of international now utterly alone, having lost their hus- charged with war crimes Bojan Dimitrejevic, a former assis- Serbia is paying a high price for and crimes against confront it.” a senior European official criminal justice is at stake. bands, sons, brothers and cousins. Many tant minister of defence now working as Mladic’s obduracy. the country has humanity, is taking place agrees, telling moNoCle: “the arrest of “this tribunal was set up for the pros- lack even a grave to mourn at. after the a historian, would sometimes bump into applied for membership of the European at the ICC in The Hague. karadzic removed any doubts about the ecution of people like Mladic,”says Bram- massacre the bodies were buried in mass Mladic in Belgrade’s kosutnjak Park. “i union but cannot join until he is caught. International government’s commitment.” mertz. “if the international community is graves, and then dug up and reburied in walked with him three times. i said i was it is a dark irony that Belgrade, once the Criminal Court not capable of arresting him, it would be a an attempt to conceal what had happened. a historian and he reacted positively. i most sophisticated and cosmopolitan city The ICC is not part of the the Hague and Belgrade are different negative legacy for the tribunal and a neg- Even a single limb, once identified, gives a wanted to ask him so many questions.” in eastern Europe, is now 20 years behind UN. It was set up in 2002 worlds. Belgrade’s ramshackle charm cap- ative precedent for other tribunals and focus to their grief. as the first permanent During encounters, Mladic was ac- Budapest or Prague. the city still buzzes international court to try tivates; the Hague’s spotless streets and courts, because it would show that at a Brammertz was profoundly moved by companied by his wife and a bodyguard, with Balkan joie de vivre, but the streets perpetrators of genocide and shiny kerbstones are crowded with prim certain moment in time the political pres- his trip. “one woman i spoke to lost 42 says Dimitrejevic. “He was bright, he re- are grey and potholed.the fine old Hab- crimes against humanity. matrons on bicycles. the iCtY is housed sure eases.” members of her family. When you meet membered what we talked about, who i sburg buildings are crumbling. in a former insurance building in a Brammertz reports to the UN Security these women and ask them what you can was and he was clearly commenting on under the pro-western government International tree-lined suburb. the courtrooms Council every six months and is due to do do for them, the answer always is: arrest Court of Justice events in detail. He refused a formal in- of President Boris tadic, which was Established in 1945 in The resemble a municipal council chamber so again in December.a positive report is Mladic.that will not change their suffer- terview, saying it was not the time.” formed in 2008, there is complete politi- Hague to settle disputes and, except when a protected witness is crucial for Serbia’s eU accession. So far, ing. But it will at least give them a feeling Dimitrejevic believes that after 2000, cal will to capture Mladic, says Milica between states. testifying, are open to the public. Most the verdict is mixed. Serbia is cooperating of justice being done.” — ()

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