NATO targets Karadzic supporters

Gestart door Caspar, 07/03/2003 | 21:29 uur

Caspar

SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina (Reuters) -- The NATO-led peacekeeping force said it launched an operation on Friday against people who it accused of giving financial help to Bosnian Serb war crimes suspect Radovan Karadzic, one of the world's most wanted men.

In an apparently coordinated move to tighten the net around Karadzic, the international body overseeing the Bosnian peace process earlier said it was taking measures targeting the support network allowing Karadzic to stay at large.

The NATO Stabilisation Force (SFOR) said in a statement it had started operations in Serb areas near the capital Sarajevo, including near the wartime Bosnian Serb stronghold of Pale.

It said the operations were being carried out to support efforts to disrupt the activities of people "who are providing financial assistance to Radovan Karadzic and other persons indicted for war crimes."

"By removing their financial and support networks we will continue to tighten the net around all persons who do not surrender voluntarily," SFOR said. "Those indicted war criminals that remain at large have no permanent hiding place."

The office of the international community's High Representative in Bosnia separately said one of its senior officials held a meeting with directors of leading banks in Bosnia's Serb republic, one of Bosnia's two autonomous entities.

"He informed them of the measures the international community was taking today against key individuals whose criminal activities were supporting indicted war criminal Radovan Karadzic," a statement said, giving no details.

"He also set out the actions that the banks would be obliged to undertake," it said.

Karadzic, one of the top fugitives sought by the United Nations war crimes court and believed to be hiding in remote and mountainous eastern Bosnia or in neighbouring Montenegro, last year eluded at least two arrest attempts by NATO peacekeepers.

The United States vowed in January to redouble efforts to help arrest Karadzic, accused of genocide during the 1992-95 war, and work as "long as it takes" to capture him.


Bron: www.cnn.com

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