RATKO MLADIC DIARIES

"Ratni Dnevnik Ratka Mladica"

Daily Blic has published excerpts of Hague fugitive Ratko Mladic’s diary. The diaries contain notes from meetings between Mladic, Jovica Stanisic and “other high-ranking military leaders” with the then president Slobodan Milosevic.

The daily states that the diary was seized during a search of the home of Mladic’s wife, Bosiljka, on December 4, 2008. The Belgrade authorities submitted Mladic’s notebook to the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) at the Hague on February 25 this year, and it reached The Hague on March 2.

It remains a mystery whether Serbian authorities submitted all pages to the Hague. It is also unknown whether any submitted (or possibly "missing") pages reveal anything about Mladic's activities in planning, ordering, and executing the Srebrenica genocide operation in July 1995.

Mladic is the most-wanted war crimes fugitive, indicted for the crime of Srebrenica genocide, as well as for the crime of Bosnian Genocide committed in other nine municipalities during the 1992-1995 war.

According to the war crimes tribunal’s sources, the “notes illustrate the cooperation between participants in the joint criminal enterprise, which includes the accused Stanisic”, who played the role “of chief coordinator of various participants of the enterprise”.

The notes suggest the meetings were held between January 27 and September 5, 1995 - a period before, during, and after the Srebrenica genocide. At least 8,372 Bosniaks (Bosnian Muslims) had been summarily executed and dumped into mass graves, while 30,000 Bosniaks had been ethnically cleansed from the town during the 1995 Srebrenica genocide.

The diary is made up of a number of hand-written notes in Cyrillic, and the entry for February 4, 1995 describes his meeting with Father Filaret, who asked him to provide security for his son-in-law. The collected information suggests that Mladic has been hiding in urban parts of Serbia since 2001, with a special affection for New Belgrade part of the city. Prosecutors want it to be entered into the list of evidence against Stanisic.

Mladic is said to mention former US president Bill Clinton in the diary and to criticize Russia’s role in the 1992-1995 war.

“Mladić also details meetings with certain people he spoke to about money for ‘buying the U.S. senator,’ mentions former Croatian President Franjo Tuđman and his trip to America, as well as certain information about army funding in 1994,” Blic adds.

Hague prosecutors had requested that the diary be listed as evidence against Stanisic and his former deputy, Franko Simatovic.

MEANWHILE: On June 4, at the UN Security Council session in New York, President of the ICTY - Patrick Robinson - stated that "It is necessary that the Serbian authorities extradite the remaining two fugitives, Ratko Mladic and Goran Hadzic, to the Hague Tribunal, as it represents a prerequisite for peace and stability in the region."

He added that, should Ratko Mladic be soon arrested, his trial might be linked with Karadzic’s one. Stating that the proceedings against Jovica Stanisic and Franko Simatovic just started and that the trial against Stojan Zupljanin will be completed by end this year, Robinson assessed that the Tribunal will complete most of its work by end of 2013, but underlined that some factors might lead to extension.

Serge Brammertz, Chief ICTY Prosecutor, stated that Serbia has made additional progress in cooperation with the Hague Tribunal, referring to the issue of access to documents, records and witnesses. He said, however, that the issue of arrest of the remaining indictees, Ratko Mladic and Goran Hadzic, is essential.

The Netherlands has announced that its position on Serbia's EU integration remains unchanged, because the report did not appraise that Belgrade had established full cooperation with this court.