The UN war crimes tribunal's chief prosecutor, Carla del Ponte, urged Montenegrin officials on Monday to step up their cooperation with the international court and neighbouring countries in efforts to locate and arrest war crimes fugitives, according to dpa. The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) chief prosecutor reminded Montenegrin politicians that indicted Serbian police general Vlastimir Djordjevic was arrested in Montenegro in June, and was presumably hiding there for a longer period of time. The chief prosecutor also said that Djordjevic had entered the country under the name "Karadzic," the surname of one of the tribunal's two most wanted fugitives - Radovan Karadzic - who along with fugitive general Ratko Mladic was a key figure in directing the brutal ethnic cleansing of Muslims in the Balkans. "We find this unacceptable and want to find a way to avoid these situations in the future," Del Ponte said, adding that "every Karadzic in Montenegro will be investigated in order to catch the real one." She also asked Montenegrin President Filip Vujanovic to intensify police cooperation with authorities in neighbouring Serbia in order to locate and arrest the four remaining fugitive war crime suspects. Of the 161 suspects charged since the tribunal was established in 1993, only four remain at large: Karadzic, Mladic, Bosnian Serb Stojan Zupljanin and Croatian Serb leader Goran Hadzic. Montenegro declared independence from Serbia in June 2006, a month after the European Union suspended stabilization and association talks with Serbia-Montenegro for lack of cooperation with the ICTY. In June 2007, two key fugitives were arrested - Bosnian Serb war crimes suspect Zdravko Tolimir and Serbian police general Vlastimir Djordjevic, prompting the EU to reinstate talks with Serbia.
