The days could be numbered for fugitive Bosnian Serb wartime leaders Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic after the Bosnian Serb premier said he was ready to arrest and hand them over to the UN war crimes tribunal.
Prime Minister Mr Mladen Ivanic made the pledge when he arrived in The Netherlands late last night.He is due to meet later today with Ms Carla del Ponte, the chief prosecutor at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia.
The court is seeking "tangible proof" from the Bosnian Serb authorities of their willingness to cooperate in picking up former Bosnian Serb leader Karadzic and his military chief Mladic, both accused of war crimes.
The dramatic shift in the Serb position follows the first court appearance here this week of ousted Yugoslav leader Slobodan Milosevic, also indicted on war crimes charges.
The Republika Srpska (RS) has previously refused to transfer suspects to the court, even though many of the court's 25 publicly indicted war crimes suspects, including Karadzic and Mladic, are believed to be hiding in the republic - one of two government entities in Bosnia.
The Milosevic hearing marked an historic step in the international community's lengthy efforts to bring to justice those allegedly responsible for the worst war crimes in Europe since World War II.
Mr Ivanic said when this happened, the RS was seen "as the only party in the former Yugoslavia that is not cooperating with the tribunal" and put it under new pressure to do so.
But A spokesman for Ms del Ponte said the tribunal wanted more than words from the Bosnian Serbs.
"Until the Republika Srpska authorities give tangible proof of their cooperation, you cannot expect us to issues statements of satisfaction," said Mr Jean-Jacques Joris, Del Ponte's diplomatic advisor.
Mr Ivanic, who is scheduled to hold a press conference at 3 p.m., said he did not know where Karadzic and Mladic were hiding.
But Mr Joris told AFPthat some Bosnian Serb officials "are in contact with Ratko Mladic and possibly Radovan Karadzic as well."
Meanwhile, the crimes of a self-confessed murderer who branded himself the Serb Adolf Hitler were abhorrent but were not genocide, appeal judges at the UN war crimes tribunal ruled today.
A panel of five judges backed the court's previous ruling that killings in Bosnia by Goran Jelisic (33) did not constitute genocide, the most serious of four types of war crime. They also upheld his 40-year prison sentence.
Judges said the previous ruling was in error regarding the proof required for establishing genocide but decided not to call a new trial due to practical reasons.
Resources are limited in terms of manpower and the uncertain longevity of the tribunal, the judgment said.
It is not appropriate that the case be remitted for further proceedings, said presiding Judge Mohamed Shahabuddeen.
Former farm mechanic Jelisic, who used to brag that he liked to kill Muslims before breakfast, had pleaded guilty to other war crimes charges but denied he committed genocide.
He had appealed against the 40-year sentence handed down in 1999, the most severe punishment by the court at that time. Prosecutors had also appealed against the rejection of the genocide charges.
AFP