ROME - Serbian President Boris Tadic promised on Thursday that his country was trying to catch Bosnian Serb General Ratko Mladic, wanted for war crimes, and sent him to the international court at The Hague to stand trial.
Mladic has been on the run since 1996, when he was charged with genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity by the International Criminal Tribunal for former Yugoslavia (ICTY) for his activities in the Bosnian war of 1992-1995.
Belgrade, whose army fought on the same side as the Bosnian Serbs during the war, has been accused of refusing to cooperate fully with the ICTY.
"We are doing all we can, in cooperation with the international authorities, but at the moment we do not know where he is," Tadic said during a vist to Rome where he held talks with Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and Foreign Minister Gianfranco Fini.
"We are working on the problem every day and we are trying to catch him and send him to the Hague," Tadic told reporters.
Two weeks ago, Rasim Ljajic, the Serbia-Montenegrin human rights minister who is also president of the body charged with working with the ICTY, said that "all our force are devoted to finding and arresting Ratko Mladic".
A senior US diplomat said in Belgrade Thursday that he doubted whether Serbia was yet ready to put war criminals on trial itself because public opinion did not acknowledge the extent of crimes carried out by its own citizens.
05/12/2005 15:51 GMT