By Christina Berger
Impunity Watch Reporter, Europe

THE HAGUE, Netherlands – Serge Brammertz, the chief prosecutor for the International Criminal Court for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), told reporters on Monday that it is vital to keep pressure on Serbia to hunt down former military chief, Ratko Mladic, who is wanted by ICTY for war crimes and genocide. Brammertz is worried about the implications for future war crimes prosecutions and international criminal justice if Mladic is not arrested and forced to stand trial for his crimes before the ICTY finishes its work in three years.

”The non-arrest of Mladic would be the worst signal you could give to all future tribunals,” Brammertz said to members of the Foreign Press Association in The Hague.  ”It would somehow give the signal to perpetrators that you can sit out international justice; that political interest is diminishing over time and that at the end of the day impunity prevails.”

He also stressed that that “those who are politically responsible” must “ensure the incentives are maintained.”  These remarks were geared toward the European Union, urging the EU to put continued pressure on Serbia to arrest Mladic.  Serbia applied to join the EU in December.  In June, Brammertz filed a report with the EU in which he criticized Serbia’s failure to find and arrest Mladic, and the EU then decided to wait before beginning review of Serbia’s application to join.  Serbia’s full compliance with the ICTY is a key condition, but there is a growing sense that Serbia’s bid to join the EU should be moved along as a reward for Serbia’s softening stance concerning Kosovo.

Stefan Fuele, the EU’s Commissioner for Enlargement, said that following the Kosovo resolution ”the time has come for the EU to tackle seriously the application of Serbia to join the European Union.”

Mladic has been indicted for the massacre of 8,000 Muslim men and boys in Srebrenica in July 1995, as well as for the 44-month siege of Sarajevo in which 10,000 people died. He has been on the run since 1995.

For more information, please see:

AFP – UN Court laments failure to arrest Serbia’s Mladic – 20 September 2010

NEW YORK TIMES – Mladic Arrest Vital For War Crimes Courts: Prosecutor – 20 September 2010

NEW YORK TIMES – War Crimes Prosecutor: Keep Pressure on Serbia – 20 September 2010

RADIO FREE EUROPE – Prosecutor: Mladic Arrest Vital For War Crimes Courts – 20 September 2010