May 3, 2006 6:52 am US/Eastern
EU Suspends Talks With Serbia
Belgrade Failed To Deliver Gen. Ratko Mladic On Time
BRUSSELS, Belgium (AP) ―
The European Union on Wednesday suspended aid and trade talks with Serbia after Belgrade failed to deliver fugitive Gen. Ratko Mladic to the U.N. war crimes tribunal.
"Serbia must show that nobody is above the law and that anybody indicted for serious crimes will face justice," said EU Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn. He spoke following consultations with Carla Del Ponte, chief prosecutor of the tribunal in The Hague, Netherlands.
"Her assessment was negative. It is disappointing that Belgrade has been unable to locate and detain Ratko Mladic," Rehn said.
Rehn said talks with Serbia on the Stabilization and Association Agreement, considered a first step toward membership in the bloc, had been progressing well. He said talks could be quickly restarted and even concluded by the end of this year, "but only if there is a dramatic improvement in cooperation with the (U.N. tribunal)."
Rasim Ljajic, the Serbian liaison to the U.N. tribunal, said Monday that Serb authorities will keep hunting for the fugitive
ex-Bosnian Serb commander, who was indicted by the U.N. court for genocide in the 1995 slaughter of 8,000 Muslim men and boys in the Bosnian enclave of Srebrenica, Europe's worst massacre since World War II.
U.N. prosecutors insist Mladic is in Serbia, but Ljajic said his whereabouts are unknown.
(© 2006 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)
Click to enlarge
I-Team: Tracking The Florida Stimulus Money Trail 
Stumble It!
