SARAJEVO - Serbia and Montenegro has intensified the search for top Bosnian war crimes suspect Ratko Mladic, the country's Human Rights Minister Rasim Ljajic told a Sarajevo daily Wednesday.
"All forces have been focused on finding and arresting Ratko Mladic," Ljajic, who is the minister in charge of cooperation with the UN war crimes tribunal at The Hague, said in an interview with the Dnevni Avaz newspaper.
"During the past three years we have checked several locations (in Serbia). But the search has now been intensified."
He said Belgrade authorities "are fully aware that Mladic is not going to surrender voluntarily".
Former Bosnian Serb army commander Mladic was indicted 10 years ago on charges including genocide for the massacre of some 8,000 Muslims in the eastern Bosnian town of Srebrenica in 1995 -- Europe's worst single atrocity since World War II.
UN war crimes prosecutor Carla Del Ponte has persistently claimed that Mladic is in Serbia under the protection of elements of the military, although Belgrade denies any knowledge of his whereabouts.
Last week the European Union gave the green light for the start of talks on a so-called stabilisation and association agreement with Serbia and Montenegro, the loose union of neighbouring Balkan republics that replaced the rump Yugoslavia in 2003.
Over the past several months 15 Serb war crimes suspects have surrendered to face charges at The Hague. Nine other Serb suspects, including Mladic and former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic, remain at large.
04/27/2005 11:03 GMT