Court head wants Serb fugitives tried in Hague
SARAJEVO, May 19 (Reuters) - The president of the United Nations war crimes tribunal said on Monday that the Hague-based court must not close until all the fugitives from the Yugoslav wars of the 1990s were arrested and tried.
Four indicted war crimes suspects, including Bosnian Serb wartime leader Radovan Karadzic and his military chief Ratko Mladic, are still at large and are widely believed to be hiding in Serbia.
"Karadzic, Mladic, (Stojan) Zupljanin and (Goran) Hadzic must be arrested," judge Fausto Pocar told a news conference during a visit to Sarajevo.
The tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, created in 1993, is under pressure from the U.N. Security Council to complete trials by 2008 and finish appeals by 2010.
"The tribunal must not close its doors until these fugitives are arrested and charged," Pocar said, adding that their arrest would prove the international community's commitment to justice and would enable the region to move forward.
Karadzic and Mladic have been charged with genocide over the 1995 Srebrenica massacre of some 8,000 Muslim men and boys and the 1992-95 Sarajevo siege in which about 11,000 people were killed.
Bosnian Serb Zupljanin was charged in 1999 with crimes against Muslims and Croats in western Bosnia early in the 1992-95 Bosnian war. Hadzic, a Croatian Serb leader, has also been indicted by the tribunal.
Pocar said that he was concerned about Bosnia's ability to keep convicted war criminals in detention after one of them escaped from prison last year.
Radovan Stankovic, a Bosnian Serb who was sentenced to 20 years for serial rape, enslavement and torture of civilians in the eastern town of Foca during Bosnia's war, broke away from prison guards and fled from Foca prison last May.
"It's clear that the situation would not happen if there were appropriate detention facilities and appropriate training of the guards," Pocar said, adding that he expected international support for the Balkan country's judiciary.
Stankovic was one of 10 war crimes suspects transferred from the Hague-based court to Bosnia for local trials. (Reporting by Daria Sito-Sucic; editing by Keith Weir)
