SARAJEVO, July 21 (AFP) - Serbia-Montenegro Defence Minister Prvoslav Davinic said during a trip to Bosnia Wednesday that his country's army was not protecting Bosnian Serb war crimes fugitive Ratko Mladic.
"I can confirm that the indicted general Mladic is not in the facilities of the Serbia-Montenegro army, and that serving officers are not protecting him," Davinic said after meeting his Bosnian couterpart, Nikola Radovanovic.
Military facilities in Serbia-Montenegro were subjected to "almost daily checks and we have found no evidence that he is hiding there," he added.
The minister went on to absolve himself of any duty to investigate the activities of retired military officers.
"The role of retired military officers (in possibly aiding Mladic) is a matter for the police and intelligence services to deal with," he said.
Former Serb military commander Mladic has been on the run since 1996 and is wanted by the UN war crimes court at The Hague for his role in Bosnia's 1992-95 conflict, particularly the Serbs' brutal "ethnic cleansing" campaign.
The charges against him include genocide for the 1995 massacre of more than 7,000 Muslim males in Srebrenica, as well as the siege of Sarajevo.
Chief UN prosecutor Carla Del Ponte has repeatedly accused Serbian authorities, particularly elements of the former Yugoslav military which backed Mladic's operations in Bosnia, of protecting their one-time ally.
The international community has warned Belgrade that its failure to arrest Mladic is blocking Serbia-Montenegro's bid to move closer to NATO and the European Union.
Serbia-Montenegro is a loose union of Balkan republics which replaced the dissolved Federal Republic of Yugoslavia last year.