Twelve major operations since mid-2004 failed to capture top Bosnian Serb war crimes suspect Ratko Mladic, Serbia and Montenegro's human rights minister was quoted as saying in a Bosnian newspaper today.
Rasim Ljajic told Sarajevo's Dnevni Avaz daily that Belgrade did not know where Mladic was. Chief UN war crimes prosecutor Carla del Ponte insists that he is in Serbia.
Ljajic said the 12 operations were carried out from August 2004 to November last year and included locations such as Belgrade, the central Serbian town of Valjevo, the Zlatibor mountain and various apartments, hospitals and monasteries.
"Action are being carried out every day and these that I mentioned are just the major ones," Ljajic said.
Belgrade is keen to show to the West that it is doing its best to arrest Mladic, the Bosnian Serb military commander in the 1992-95 war who is indicted for genocide together with his wartime political boss and fellow fugitive Radovan Karadzic.
The two men were charged for the siege of Sarajevo and the 1995 massacre of 8,000 Muslim men and boys in the former U.N. "safe area" of Srebrenica. Apart from Karadzic and Mladic, four other ethnic Serbs are still wanted by the Tribunal for their role in the Yugoslav wars of the 1990s.
Arresting the two top fugitives or persuading them to surrender is a key condition for Sarajevo and Belgrade to forge closer ties with the European Union and NATO.
"Neither I, nor anyone in Serbia and Montenegro knows where Mladic is. No one can say with absolute certainty that he is not in Serbia or that he is in Serbia." Ljajic said. "If someone says that he is here we would like to hear where."
Serbia and Montenegro's Supreme Defence Council said this week that in 2002 army officals withdrew his permission to use military facilities.
Ljajic dismissed accusations that recent activities, such as the report, were staged ahead of del Ponte's visit to Belgrade next week.
"Only results matter and not words. Del Ponte will be satisfied only when Mladic is in The Hague." Ljajic said.