Friday, December 16, 2005

Crimes of War - II

Serbian war criminals continue to hide out in the Russian Federation, which seems to be unwilling to locate and extradite them. It's only five years since Yugoslav defence minister Dragoljub Ojdanic was received with full honours in Moscow, a year after he was indicted by Hague prosecutors for war crimes in Kosovo. And since then, Moscow has not exactly been co-operative: though another indictee, ex-Bosnian Serb military policeman Dragan Zelenovic was arrested in late August, he has not yet been extradited to face justice. Another Hague war crimes suspect, Sredoje Lukic, had also apparently been successfully hiding in Russia, before giving himself in September. Now yet another suspect, former Serbian police chief Vlastimir Djordjevic, accused of involvement in large-scale atrocities carried out against Kosovo Albanians in 1999, is apparently still hiding in Russia, where he continues to evade capture.

Today, RIA Novosti notes:
Carla Del Ponte said at the UN Security Council that, in July 2004, the ICTY investigators told Russian partners where former Serbian police General Vlastimir Djordjevic, accused of slaying Serbian Albanians, lived in Moscow.

She said Russia claimed he was not in Moscow. The ICTY received new information on Djordjevic with evidence that he had been living in the southern Russian city of Rostov-on-Don, but Moscow again denied his presence in the country. Del Ponte said she wanted Russia to fulfill its obligations and continue to search for the criminal.
(via global-geopolitics)
See also in this blog: Crimes of War

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