US blocking arrest of Bosnian Serb leader, expert says

Posted
Mon Sep 10, 2007 10:00pm AEST

A former senior official at the international war crimes tribunal in
The Hague has accused the United States of repeatedly blocking efforts
to arrest a fugitive Bosnian Serb wartime leader.

The allegations were made in the official's memoirs, which have just
been published in
France.

Florence Hartmann was spokeswoman for the UN tribunal's chief
prosecutor, Carla del Ponte, for six years up to last year.

She says that in 1997 the former French president, Jacques Chirac,
wanted to mount an operation to capture Radovan Karadzic but was
talked out of it by former US president, Bill Clinton, backed by
Britain and Germany.

She says it was partly due to
Moscow's opposition, alleging that
Russia temporarily spirited Mr Karadzic to Belarus that year.

But she also speculates that the West was worried about what he might
reveal about the Srebrenica massacre.

- BBC

 

http://abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/09/10/2029181.htm?section=justin