Ljajić: Arrests by year's end

Rasim Ljajic thinks Ratko Mladic and Goran Hadzic will be caught by the end of 2009 despite the misunderstanding between the international community and Serbia. The president of the National Council for Cooperation with the Hague Tribunal said that verdicts issued to the former senior Serbian political, military and police leaders for crimes in Kosovo was not final and that it could not be key in establishing the full truth about events in Kosovo. Ljajic: Arrests by year's end Ljajic believes the Hague Tribunal’s verdict will complicate the hunt for the remaining Hague fugitives and the completion of cooperation with the court. “There is no rational explanation that our public could accept after these verdicts, particularly when compared to the verdict for Ramush Haradinaj,“ he stressed. According to the National Council president, Serbia’s efforts to track down the fugitives is hampered by the pressure coming from sections of the international community, but also the growing number of people who oppose cooperation with the Tribunal and the extradition of the remaining suspects. Ljajic said that cooperation with the Hague court was in the country’s highest interests, as the country was suffering, not only politically and legally, but in material terms too, explaining that the hunt for the fugitives was costing EUR 30,000 per day, which were major funds that could be used for combating organized crime and corruption. The National Council president bases his hopes on concluding Hague cooperation by the end of the year on the fact that the authorities have significantly more operative knowledge of Mladic and Hadzic’s movements than before, and that there have been major improvements in terms of “incomparably better cooperation between the military and civilian security forces, and also determination to wrap this whole business up.“ “We’ve more or less reconstructed the fugitives’ movements in the past and that knowledge is helpful in searches, and we’ll undoubtedly continue with these operations in the coming period, though it’s important to say as little about this in public as possible, as it’s important for this to be brought to a close,“ he said. Asked about the extent of foreign security services’ role in reconstructing the fugitives’ movements, Ljajic replied that Serbia had not drawn much use from these services in the past and that “more or less” everything had been done in cooperation with domestic services. The National Council president added that cooperation with other services would be intensifying in the coming period in the sense of exchanging information and receiving any data that could be of use to further operative searches, as there were indications that some of the Hague fugitives had been moving around the countries in the region. Ljajic stressed that information from other services had only been used in two out of 44 cases, and that it would be fair to say that Serbian agencies were almost entirely responsible for what had been achieved so far. He said that proponents of Kosovo independence, both from the province itself but also from the international community, were trying to politically instrumentalize the Tribunal verdict and use it as an argument in favor of independence in the case before the International Court of Justice. “There will be those who’ll try to corroborate this argumentation for the independence declaration with various legal interpretations, but I’m convinced that the verdicts won’t have any bearing on the court’s decision. At the end of the day, this isn’t the final verdict and it cannot be key to establishing the full truth behind events in Kosovo,” he stressed. Rasim Ljajic (Tanjug, archive)

Ljajić: Arrests by year's end

Ljajić believes the Hague Tribunal’s verdict will complicate the hunt for the remaining Hague fugitives and the completion of cooperation with the court.

“There is no rational explanation that our public could accept after these verdicts, particularly when compared to the verdict for Ramush Haradinaj,“ he stressed.

According to the National Council president, Serbia’s efforts to track down the fugitives is hampered by the pressure coming from sections of the international community, but also the growing number of people who oppose cooperation with the Tribunal and the extradition of the remaining suspects.

Ljajić said that cooperation with the Hague court was in the country’s highest interests, as the country was suffering, not only politically and legally, but in material terms too, explaining that the hunt for the fugitives was costing EUR 30,000 per day, which were major funds that could be used for combating organized crime and corruption.

The National Council president bases his hopes on concluding Hague cooperation by the end of the year on the fact that the authorities have significantly more operative knowledge of Mladić and Hadžić’s movements than before, and that there have been major improvements in terms of “incomparably better cooperation between the military and civilian security forces, and also determination to wrap this whole business up.“

“We’ve more or less reconstructed the fugitives’ movements in the past and that knowledge is helpful in searches, and we’ll undoubtedly continue with these operations in the coming period, though it’s important to say as little about this in public as possible, as it’s important for this to be brought to a close,“ he said.

Asked about the extent of foreign security services’ role in reconstructing the fugitives’ movements, Ljajić replied that Serbia had not drawn much use from these services in the past and that “more or less” everything had been done in cooperation with domestic services.

The National Council president added that cooperation with other services would be intensifying in the coming period in the sense of exchanging information and receiving any data that could be of use to further operative searches, as there were indications that some of the Hague fugitives had been moving around the countries in the region.

Ljajić stressed that information from other services had only been used in two out of 44 cases, and that it would be fair to say that Serbian agencies were almost entirely responsible for what had been achieved so far.

He said that proponents of Kosovo independence, both from the province itself but also from the international community, were trying to politically instrumentalize the Tribunal verdict and use it as an argument in favor of independence in the case before the International Court of Justice.

“There will be those who’ll try to corroborate this argumentation for the independence declaration with various legal interpretations, but I’m convinced that the verdicts won’t have any bearing on the court’s decision. At the end of the day, this isn’t the final verdict and it cannot be key to establishing the full truth behind events in Kosovo,” he stressed.