Karadzic and Mladic in The Hague by September

Chief ICTY Prosecutor Carla Del Ponte said Serb warlords Karadzic and Mladic would be arrested before her mandate’s end in September.

During her visit to Zagreb, chief prosecutor of the International War Crimes Trubinal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), Carla Del Ponte, compared her work at the tribunal with a glass of water. 

The glass is half empty or half full, as is my satisfaction with my work at the ICTY, she told Croatian Television’s Dnevnik Plus show.

She added that cooperation with Croatian authorities and secret services had helped her in the apprehension of Croatian General Ante Gotovina.

We followed the work of Croatian services, which is why we could locate him outside of Croatia, Del Ponte asserted.

Gotovina did not wish to speak with me 

After Gotovina’s arrest, she said, she did not speak to him, so she could not know whether Croatian authorities or the Church had part in harbouring him.

He did not wish to speak with me, but I believe that information that the Church was hiding him was true, she said.

Del Ponte also compared the cooperation of the former Ivica Racan’s government with that of the current Ivo Sanader’s.

Racan had many difficulties in cooperating with us, while Sanader is more focused on Croatia’s future, said the prosecutor, recalling that Sanader had told her Gotovina was innocent, but that it was his duty to extradite him to the tribunal.

The European Union must exert pressure on Serbia 

Asked whether Serbia would negotiate with the EU without extraditing war crimes indictees Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic, Del Ponte adamantly replied that the international community must continue exerting pressure on Belgrade.

Alongside Del Ponte, ICTY president Fausto Pocar took part in the television show.

Pocar said he was hopeful that Karadzic and Mladic would be processed in The Hague because a lot of money and resources had been invested and they had not yet bee caught.

The message that all criminals will be punished must be substantiated, Pocar said.

He stressed that the ICTY had shown that it was possible to fight crime and that the tribunal could conduct fair trials.