KARADZIC NAMED BY TRIBUNAL

The international criminal tribunal for former Yugoslavia is investigating the bosnian-serb leader

(The European, 28/04/1995)

THE international criminal tribunal for former Yugoslavia, sending out its toughest signal yet, announced on 24 April that it was investigating Bosnian-Serb leader Radovan Karadzic and two other senior Bosnian Serbs on suspicion of war crimes.

Bosnian-Serb military commander Ratko Mladic and Mico Stanisic, the former head of secret police, were also named by Robert Goldstone, chief prosecutor in The Hague.

Goldstone said the investigations were at an advanced stage and could lead to formal charges by the end of this year. If indictments are issued, Bosnian-Serb leaders would face arrest if they travelled abroad, as Karadzic has done several times for peace talks in Geneva.

Goldstone wants BosniaHerzegovina to suspend its legal proceedings against Karadzic and defer the case to the tribunal. The Bosnian government has indicated that it will agree to the tribunal taking over the investigation and prosecution of the Bosnian-Serb leaders.

Three of the tribunal's 11 judges will convene on 9 May to consider Goldstone's request. The tribunal, set up by the UN Security Council in May 1993, is preparing for the first international war crimes trials since those held in the aftermath of the Second World War.

The tribunal took custody on 24 April of its first war crimes suspect, Bosnian Serb Dusan Tadic. He denied charges of raping, beating and torturing Muslims and Croats during an ,,ethnic cleansing" campaign near Prijedor, northwest Bosnia, in 1992.

Tadic, 39, arrested in Ger many early last year, is expected to appear before the war crimes tribunal in the next few days. His trial due to begin by the summer.

The tribunal has so far indicted 22 people, all Serbs, of whom the most senior is Zeljko Meakic, former commander of the notorious Omarska detention camp, who is charged with genocide.

But it has managed to gain custody of only one suspect, Tadic. The rest are believed to be at large in Serb-controlled areas of Bosnia or in Serbia.