Serbia Offers Million Euro Reward for Mladic Info

The arrest of Mladic is a key condition for Serbia to sign a Stabilisation and Association Agreement with the European Union.

Serbia is ready to pay a reward of 1 million euros ($1.42 million) for information leading to the arrest of top war crimes fugitive Ratko Mladic, officials said on Friday.

The arrest of Mladic, a former Bosnian Serb general indicted for genocide by the United Nations war crimes tribunal in The Hague, is a key condition for Serbia to sign an association accord with the European Union, a first step towards membership.

Serbian President Boris Tadic said Mladic's arrest could also affect negotiations over Serbia's Kosovo province, where the 90-percent Albanian majority demands independence.

"The delivery of Mladic could improve Serbia's negotiating position in the issue of Kosovo," he told Austrian ORF radio. "Our international credibility would improve dramatically, we'd have a markedly better chance to defend our national interests."

The EU has never made a formal link between Mladic's capture and the status of Kosovo. The province has been run by the U.N. since 1999, when NATO expelled Serb forces accused of carrying out ethnic cleansing of Albanians while fighting an insurgency.

Serbia, backed by Russia, opposes Kosovo independence. the latest talks are set to end on Dec. 10, with Kosovo leaders threatening to declare independence soon after.

Rasim Ljajic, Serbia's point man in dealings with the war crimes tribunal, said rewards of 250,000 euros each were offered for information leading to the arrest of two other fugitives: Bosnian Serb Stojan Zupljanin, a former senior police commander, and Croatian Serb leader Goran Hadzic.

But there would be no reward for information on Radovan Karadzic, the Bosnian Serb political leader indicted on the same charges as Mladic for his role in the 1992-95 Bosnia war.

"He is not a Serbian citizen, and there was no legal basis to offer a reward," Ljajic said.

The country's war crimes prosecutor, Vladimir Vukcevic, said the rewards did not mean the fugitives were in Serbia, just that there was political will to find them.

"We are looking for them as if they were here, but we are not sure," he told local media. "We don't know where they are."

Serbia's progress in arresting war crimes suspects is closely watched by Carla del Ponte, chief prosecutor of the war crimes tribunal. Her reports to Brussels resulted in the freeze of Serbia's EU talks in 2006, and their resumption in June.

Del Ponte is due to brief EU foreign ministers on Monday on Serbia's cooperation. An EU source said this week that if she reports an improvement, the bloc may decide to initial, but not yet sign, a Stabilisation and Association Agreement with Serbia.