Hague "to block Serbia's EU path because of Radicals"

Hague "to block Serbia's EU path because of Radicals"

"In the next report about its work that the Tribunal will submit to the (UN) Council, the issue of the failure to extradite the Radicals will be emphasized, and then the topic will shift from the UN Brussels, because the Tribunal will lobby the EU and its member-states to press us to solve this question," Ljajic said.

In practice, this could mean that some EU countries will refuse to agree to the opening of new chapters in Serbia's EU accession talks until Jovo Ostojic, Vjerica Radeta, and Petar Jojic have been extradited, the daily said.

The case of the SRS officials, for whose arrest warrant was issued in January, is further complicated because the Tribunal on Tuesday announced that since October 5, there is also an international warrant. The three are charged with contempt of court in the case against SRS leader Vojislav Seselj, and are accused of threatening, intimidating and offering bribes to witnesses.

The daily said that it learned from the Tribunal recently that "the current lack of cooperation of Serbia in the contempt of course proceedings is a reversal and a step backwards in the cooperation with the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, something that President of the Tribunal Carmel Agius has already stressed in his address to the Security Council in June 2016."

Agius should present his next six-month report to the UN Security Council by the end of the year and it will, as the paper learned from the Tribunal, contain the latest information on the current status of proceedings in the contempt of court the case, and an assessment of Serbia's cooperation in this case.