NATO troops failed yesterday to arrest the war crimes fugitive suspect, Dr Radovan Karadzic, during a raid on a tiny village in south-east Bosnia where the Bosnian Serb wartime leader was thought to be hiding.
Acting on a tip, soldiers from the NATO-led Stabilisation Force (SFOR) arrived aboard four helicopters in Celebici, some 70 km south-east of Sarajevo, residents and SFOR officials said.
SFOR troops "conducted an operation to detain Radovan Karadzic near the town of Celebici," an SFOR statement said. "Karadzic was not found at this location," it added. It was the first time that NATO has revealed a major operation to arrest the former Bosnian Serb president who tops the list of the UN war crimes tribunal's most wanted fugitives.
Mr Karadzic (56) has been indicted for war crimes and genocide committed during Bosnia's 1992-95 war, including the siege of Sarajevo and the 1995 massacre of 6,500 Muslims in Srebrenica.
NATO troops seized three weapons caches in several of the buildings in Celebici, including "significant quantities of anti-tank rockets, grenades, mortar rounds, automatic machine guns, and anti-personnel mines," SFOR said.
Residents of Celebici said that soldiers forced their way into a school, church, grocery store and houses during the raid that lasted about one hour.
The troops said nothing to the villagers about their hunt for Dr Karadzic, instead handing them a piece of paper with the message: "Don't be afraid. This is a routine check," in English, German and Serbian. An elementary school teacher said a soldier burst into her classroom and ordered the children to leave. Celebici's villagers, who are Serbs, refuse to say whether Dr Karadzic had ever been hiding there.
After troops left the area, Dr Karadzic's brother, Luka, said he was "fine" and former adviser Mr Jovan Zametica was quoted as saying that NATO forces were "definitely" clueless about his whereabouts. In Banja Luka, the Bosnian Serb Prime Minister, Mr Mladen Ivanic criticised NATO for failing to advise his government of the operation.