Within two days I had a number of google alerts concerning Mladic in my mailbox.
First, it was suddenly news that Mladic bullied allies for their support and successful help evading capture:
BELGRADE, Jan 20 (Reuters) – The support network of war crimes fugitive Ratko Mladic is getting smaller and weaker as Serbian investigators close in on a man who has alienated and bullied his protectors, a Serbian official said on Tuesday. “Some time before 2002, when he (Mladic) used army premises to hide, he lined up all the officers helping him to hide, pointed his finger at each and said that even their grandchildren will be hurt if they dare to give out information on where he is hiding,” Ljajic told Reuters. The Serbian government has posted a one-million-euro reward for information leading to Mladic’s arrest, and the United States is offering another $5 million. The arrest is vital to Serbia’s future as Belgrade cannot advance towards European Union membership until it turns over Mladic to The Hague. Ljajic, who is also Serbia’s minister for labour and social affairs, said Belgrade knows more about Mladic’s whereabouts today than six months ago. “Mladic trusts only a small number of people. He is aware that more people in his support network would only make the job for our services easier,” Ljajic said. The minister added that officials have reconstructed Mladic’s moves up until the spring of 2006. Giving rare details of the long-running manhunt, Rasim Ljajic, Serbia’s point man for cooperation with the Hague war crimes tribunal, said Mladic had even threatened the children of supporters to make sure they reveal no clues of his whereabouts. (you can read the full article here)
And – without coincidence, Carla del Ponte´s book “ Madame Prosecutor: Confrontations with Humanity´s Worst Criminals and the Culture of Impunity”
about the eight years she spent chasing Bosnian war criminals is now published in English.
According to Blic Online, del Ponte claims, that then CIA chief George Tenet promised his support in Karadzic´s hunt , but was obstructing her in reality.
I am not sure if she goes as far as actualy claiming to have evidence, rather than refering to her associtate Florence Hartmann´s allegations:
Del Ponte’s closest associate Florence Hartman writes in her book ‘The Peace and the Punishment’ that in 2003 Mladic resided in seven different flats in Belgrade and that Serbia authorities pretended not to know where he was ‘with the blessing of the CIA’.
She also claims that Mladic enjoys protection of the French intelligence service because of release of the captured pilots and that Chirac personally stopped Mladic’s arrest on several occasions.
Artman also discloses that Joschka Fischer, former German foreign minister told Del Ponte at the beginning of 2006 that according to the report by German secret Service the BRD, he had been informed that Ashdown had met with Karadzic at the end of 2004. Del Ponte requested that report from the BRD in order to face the Great Britain with it, but Germany, as Hartman claims, refused that request.
Hartman also claims that Geoffrey Nice is actually the MI6 agent. She reminded of a small detail from an interview given by former Kosovo leader Azem Vlasi in May of 2007. Vlasi said that Nice told him during their meeting in Belgrade that he, Nice, participated in the mission in former Yugoslavia in 1966.
In August last year she told ‘Blic’ that ‘during the summer of 2005 two CIA agents, presenting themselves as the Hague Tribunal’s representatives, requested from the Bosnia/Herzegovina Police to suspend following of the Karadzic family ordered by Del Ponte’. (you can read the full article here Blic online 22.01.2209 BIA collecting data on Mladic from 30 countries
Why just the reference? -Florence Hartman, Ms Del Ponte’s former spokeswoman, was charged with two counts of contempt for knowingly and willfully disclosing information.
Apparently, if data on Mladic is compiled from 30 countries – a fugitive story.
Not so long ago he was seen as a sheperd, than as a tuberculosis patient in Belarus ……as himself, proudly and in all his glory.
Someone told me, that Mladic was seen as Chirac´s poodle.
No wonder Chirac was mauled by his depressive dog.
