Global Policy Forum

The chief UN war crimes prosecutor for the former Yugoslavia on Monday accused Belgrade authorities of helping a fugitive escape capture by informing him of a secret warrant for his arrest. Chief Prosecutor Carla Del Ponte said Goran Hadzic, indicted for alleged war crimes in 1992-1993, was able to flee his home in Serbia last Tuesday, hours after UN prosecutors presented authorities with the arrest warrant.

"He left by car having taken a bag with him . . . he has not returned to this house since that day," Del Ponte told reporters. She said she had evidence, including photographs, documenting Hadzic's escape. He left his northern Serbian villa, after spending the afternoon with his family, 17 hours before police had been ordered by a local judge to arrest him, she said.

Del Ponte didn't specify who had tipped Hadzic off, but said it was the second time this year "when we can actually see for ourselves indictees, located by my office, fleeing in a hurry just hours after the Belgrade authorities had been requested to act upon arrest warrants." She didn't say who was involved in the first case.

Del Ponte has earlier accused Belgrade of failing to co-operate on capturing top war crimes suspects, including former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic, a top Bosnian Serb general.

Hadzic, a wartime leader of the self-declared breakaway Serb Republic of Krajina, has been accused of crimes against humanity and violations of the customs of war in eastern Slavonia, Croatia. The arrest warrant was transmitted to Belgrade authorities last Tuesday, she said.

Del Ponte said she was "particularly surprised" by the timing of Hadzic's escape, just 10 days after new Serbian President Boris Tadic stated in his first speech in office that co-operation with the tribunal was a priority. If the Serbian government doesn't assist in detaining fugitives, it faces potential sanctions imposed by the UN Security Council. It also threatens to damage relations with NATO and the European Union as it seeks to end years of isolation after the Balkan wars.

In 1992-1993, Hadzic served as president of the rebel Serb self-styled province of Krajina, a territory seized by Serbs in a rebellion against Croatia's declaration of independence from the former Yugoslavia in 1991. Croatia later regained the land in a lightning offensive in 1995, sending 250,000 Krajina Serbs fleeing Croatia, mostly to Serbia and Bosnia. Efforts to repatriate these refugees are still under way. Croatia, which already has tried dozens of mainly low-key Serb figures for war crimes, also has indicted Hadzic. That indictment accuses Hadzic of the 1991 deadly shelling of the Croatian city of Vukovar in eastern Croatia, where Hadzic was stationed at the time.