From the International Desk
Published 6/26/2002 10:07
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BELGRADE, Yugoslavia, June 26 (UPI) -- The Yugoslav army's security chief met secretly with an indicted war crimes suspect on the lam in late February, the Danas newspaper reported Wednesday.
Gen. Aca Tomic met with the former Bosnian Serb military leader Gen. Ratko Mladic in Belgrade, Danas quoted an unnamed top army official as saying. Tomic, who is in charge of the army's security and intelligence service, was also quoted as saying the Yugoslav army was "taking care of" a number of people on The Hague tribunal's indictments, meaning concealing their whereabouts.
Tomic said this in the presence of another top officer, the paper said without identifying the official.
Mladic is one of two war crimes suspects wanted by The Hague-based International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. The other, Radovan Karadzic, former president of the Republika Srpska, the Bosnian Serb half of Bosnia-Herzegovina, also is in hiding.
Carla Del Ponte, the tribunal's chief prosecutor, wants both men to stand trial with former Republika Srpska Vice President Biljana Plavsic and the enclave's former Speaker Momcilo Krajisnik for crimes against Muslims and Croats allegedly committed by forces under their control in Bosnia. Del Ponte said Monday the Yugoslav government had been told Mladic was hiding in Serbia and that he must be extradited. Belgrade officials said they were unaware of him being in the country, she said.
Yugoslav President Vojislav Kostunica appointed Tomic to his post earlier this year, reportedly to replace Pavkovic, who headed the Yugoslav troops in Kosovo during the 1999 war with NATO.
