War Crimes Suspect Said to Be Captured or Close to Surrender

BELGRADE, Serbia and Montenegro —  Rumors swirled late Tuesday that fugitive Bosnian Serb Gen. Ratko Mladic had been captured and was being transferred to an international court in the Netherlands to be tried for alleged war crimes.

However, Serbian officials quickly denied the reports, and a spokesman for the court in The Hague said the panel had no information that an arrest had been made.

People close to the Serbian government and Western sources indicated that intensive negotiations were underway between the government and Mladic to persuade him to surrender. Mladic has strong support in Serbia and has long been protected by elements of the army that remain loyal to him.

In any case, the Serbian government would like to avoid an arrest if possible to minimize the backlash it could suffer if Mladic had to be forcibly extradited to face charges of genocide and crimes against humanity.

Mladic and Radovan Karadzic, the former Bosnian Serb political chief, are the two leading Balkan fugitives still being sought for their role in the mid-1990s war in Bosnia-Herzegovina. They are wanted for their alleged involvement in the 3 1/2 -year siege of Sarajevo, the Bosnian capital, and for the slaughter of more than 7,000 Muslim men and boys in the U.N.-protected Srebrenica enclave.

The reports of Mladic’s arrest -- or, in some accounts, his surrender -- came as Serbia faces intense pressure from the international community to turn over the Bosnian Serb army’s wartime leader. Mladic long had been believed to be hiding in plain view in Belgrade, the capital of Serbia as well as of Serbia and Montenegro, although more recently it seemed that he had left the city, according to news reports.

The European Union set the end of this month as the date for Serbia to comply with the demand that Mladic be turned over to the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia in The Hague. Serbia, which is in a loose union with Montenegro, wants to enter the EU eventually and is at the first step in the process: negotiating its accession to the Stabilization and Association Process.

EU Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn will make the assessment of whether Serbia is cooperating fully with The Hague tribunal, and it is likely that if Mladic is not sent to the Netherlands that negotiations would be halted.

Serbian Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica relies on a fragile coalition to remain in power and is under pressure from both the right and left. The political party aligned with former President Slobodan Milosevic has often threatened to pull out of the government if Mladic is arrested. Another party, G-17, is pressuring the government to meet EU demands to turn over Mladic. If either one withdraws its support for Kostunica, the government will fall.

For its part, the government is eager to improve its international standing not only because of its EU aspirations but also because it is trying to maintain its loose union with Montenegro, which recently has said it wants to seek independence. Serbia also is in the midst of talks on the status of Kosovo, the Albanian-majority province that has been a United Nations protectorate since 1999. Serbia wants to be able to get the best possible deal for Serbs who live and work within Kosovo’s borders.

“The longer they delay arresting Mladic, the more it hurts their position on Montenegro and on Kosovo,” said James Lyon, special Balkans advisor to the International Crisis Group.

Times staff writer Rubin reported from Vienna and special correspondent Cirjakovic from Belgrade.