Bosnia, Petritsch: Shameful that two main culprits of the war are still at large

(18/2/2002)BRUSSELS (February 18) - The international community's top peace envoy in Bosnia called for the immediate arrest of the U.N. war crimes tribunal's two most wanted men on Monday, saying it was ''shameful'' they were still at large. According to Reuters, Wolfgang Petritsch said Serb wartime leader Radovan Karadzic and his military commander Ratko Mladic were well armed and protected and must be arrested immediately to demonstrate a commitment to justice and the rule of law. ''I think we can now safely claim that the architects of ethnic cleansing have not won, they are in fact losing,'' he told a news conference on the sidelines of a European Union foreign ministers meeting in Brussels. ''It is all the more shameful, however, that two of the main culprits and the main architects of this terrible war are still at large, and these are of course Karadzic and Mladic. Karadzic is widely believed to be hiding in mountainous eastern Bosnia close to the border with the Yugoslav republic of Montenegro. That would put him under the nose of the NATO-led Stabilisation Force, criticised in the past for doing too little to capture suspected war criminals.

//Shqiptarja.com

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• Ratko Mladiç