Ex-police chief wanted for crimes against humanity found in resort

Montenegro police arrested a former Serbian police general yesterday who had been on the run for more than three years since being charged with murder and persecution of ethnic Albanians in Kosovo, the Yugoslav war crimes tribunal said.

Vlastimir Djordjevic, Serbia's assistant interior minister and chief of the Public Security Department from 1997 to 2001 and a close aide of late ex-Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic, was later transferred to the tribunal's detention block, the Hague-based court said in a statement.

No date was immediately set for Djordjevic to enter pleas to the charges against him.

It was the second arrest in just over two weeks of a fugitive from the Balkan wars of the 1990s, leaving only four men on the run, including former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic and his wartime military commander Gen. Ratko Mladic.

The arrest of Zdravko Tolimir on June 1 prompted the European Union to resume pre-membership talks with Serbia that had been suspended last year over what the EU called Belgrade's lack of cooperation in hunting down war crimes suspects.

Djordjevic's arrest "was carried out in cooperation between the office of the prosecutor, Montenegrin authorities and Serbia and it is a sign of the good cooperation we established on a regional level," tribunal spokesman Anton Nikiforov said. "We want to praise Montenegrin police and Serb authorities for another successful operation."

Belgrade's newfound willingness to cooperate in such arrests could indicate that the days in hiding of Mladic - widely believed to be in Serbia - are drawing to an end.

Montenegrin police later confirmed the arrest in the Adriatic Sea resort town of Budva, saying Djordjevic was hiding under a false identity, had grown a beard and worked as a builder during his time in hiding.

The UN war crimes prosecutor for the former Yugoslavia, Carla Del Ponte, had recently claimed Djordjevic was hiding in Russia.

He went into hiding in 2001 and had been considered a fugitive from international justice since being indicted in October 2003.

For more than a decade, Serb authorities were reluctant to pursue war crimes suspects. But amid intense international pressure, they have helped persuade many fugitives to surrender, and more than two dozen suspects have given themselves up in recent years. The court has indicted 161 people since it was created in 1993.

"One after another, the men on the run in the Balkans are being arrested by the authorities in the member states of the Council of Europe," Secretary General Terry Davis said in a statement. "They can't hide forever - time is running out for all of them."

Djordjevic, along with six other high-ranking Serb officials, is accused of planning and instigating crimes in the Serbian province of Kosovo in the first half of 1999, including the forced deportation of 800,000 Kosovars, and the killings of hundreds of ethnic Albanians who had "no active part in hostilities," according to his indictment.

The other six suspects already are on trial at the tribunal, facing possible life sentences if convicted. Also on trial is former Kosovo prime minister and rebel leader Ramush Haradinaj, accused of crimes against Serbs.

Prosecutors say Serb authorities unleashed a campaign of terror aimed at driving ethnic Albanians out of Kosovo to ensure continued Belgrade control of the province.

"This purpose was to be achieved by criminal means consisting of a widespread or systematic campaign of terror and violence that included deportations, murders, forcible transfers and persecutions directed at the Kosovo Albanian population," according to court papers.

The campaign was finally halted in 1999 by NATO airstrikes. Since then, the province of 2 million people, of whom 90 percent are ethnic Albanians, has been run by the UN and patrolled by NATO troops.

UN special envoy Martti Ahtisaari has recommended independence for Kosovo under international supervision, but the UN Security Council has yet to vote on the proposal.

The United States and European Union back Kosovo's bid for independence. But this is vehemently opposed by Serbia, which is backed by Russia. Moscow contends that independence would set a dangerous precedent for the world's other breakaway regions.