A military hotel was raided yesterday in downtown Belgrade yesterday evening as part of a search for Ratko Mladic who is sought in connection with the Srebrenica massacre in 1995. Police officials said they were tipped off that Mladic was in the area, though the search turned up empty handed.
Serbia has been developing a new government as part of its bid to join the European Union. The coalition government has agreed to uphold the "five pillars" of independence for Kosovo, EU membership, cooperation with war crimes investigations at The Hague, as well economic and other reforms. The EU had recently resumed negotiations with Serbia after originally balking on membership talks due to failure to indict and capture Mladic.
On May 5, Special Forces of the Serbian Police launched a raid on Mladic's estate in the western Serbian area of Valjevo. The raid resulted in the detention of several of Mladic's associates, including Marko Lugonja, a former high ranking official in the Rupublika Srpska Army. Police have cut off most of Mladic's finances and it is believed that most of his affiliates have been captured, leaving him with one or two remaining associates.
Mladic is sought by the International Criminal Court for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) at The Hague, Netherlands. Mladic, and his associate Radovan Karadzic, were indicted by the ICTY in 1995 for genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes for the Srebrenica massacre, the worst such incident in Europe since the Holocaust.
The EU specified Serbia's cooperation with The Hague as a precondition for its membership. The chief prosecutor for the ICTY, Carla Del Ponte, has expressed her frustration with Serbia's failure to meet an April extradition deadline for Mladic.
