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Hunting Ratko —Belgrade & the Hague

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Hunting Ratko —Belgrade & the Hague 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 genocide. 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 Yugoslavia (iCtY) in the Hague, where he is charged with war crimes, crimes against humanity 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 Srebrenica 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.
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