The top international representative in Bosnia, Mr Paddy Ashdown, renewed threats today to sanction people suspected of helping fugitive war crimes suspects evade justice.
Those providing support to war crimes suspects still at large "risk having their freedom to travel removed, their bank account closed, their business investigated and their job removed," Mr Ashdown told lawmakers in the Bosnian Serb assembly.
"No one, however high or low, will be excluded from this if they support war criminals, or if they fail to do all they can to bring them to justice," he said.
The Bosnian Serb entity is under increasing international pressure over the war crimes issue, since it is the only territory in the former Yugoslavia which has not yet arrested a single war crimes suspect.
Mr Ashdown reminded that the international community has already acted in its campaign to crack down on the support network for war crimes suspects. The European Union has begun compiling a list of people to be banned from its territory for reportedly protecting war crimes suspects.
Upon Mr Ashdown's initiative, the names of two powerful Bosnian Serb businessmen - Mr Momcilo Mandic and Mr Milovan Bjelica - were put on the list.
Last month Mr Ashdown and the US accused the two men - who are already barred from visiting the United States - of supporting the UN court most wanted war crimes suspect Mr Radovan Karadzic and imposed financial sanctions against them.
AFP