War crimes suspect Ratko Mladic is being sheltered from arrest by members of Serbia's security services, Serbian Foreign Minister Vuk Draskovic said today.
Mladic's handover to justice is a key condition of Serbian membership of the EU, and Brussels broke off talks earlier this month because the former Bosnian Serb military commander had not been delivered to the UN war crimes tribunal.
Over the last week, special forces have raided houses across Serbia but failed to find Mladic, who is accused of organising the Srebrenica massacre of 8,000 Muslims and the siege of Sarajevo in the 1992-95 Bosnian war.
Serbian Foreign Minister Vuk Draskovic
Mr Draskovic said the security forces' efforts were being frustrated by renegade elements in their own ranks who knew where Mladic was hiding. "Of course they know, because they are paid to know," Mr Draskovic told the Kremlin's English-language Russia Today channel. He said the government had failed to reform the security services and was now suffering for its failure to remove Mladic's allies from high places.
"We believed that it was possible, let me say, to pour new wine into old bottles. And we are paying the price now. And they are now, absolutely, some of them or a network of them, are supporting the fugitive," he said.
The arrest of Mladic is seen as vital for Belgrade to assert its democratic credentials and unlock investment into the former pariah state.
"We are now in a tragic condition when instead of arresting Mladic, all of us, the whole Serbian nation is arrested by Mladic," said Mr Draskovic. "All defenders, protectors of Mladic here, in Serbia, are acting against the future of this state. Serbia is more important than the tribunal, than Mladic, than any person."
Carla del Ponte, chief prosecutor at the Hague tribunal, has also blamed renegade elements in the security services of frustrating the search.
Mr Draskovic made no mention of the fact that a Russian court this week freed Dragan Zelenovic, another Bosnian Serb indicted by the UN tribunal for crimes against humanity, from custody without moving to extradite him.