SERBIA & MONTENEGRO: Ratko Mladic, the Bosnian Serb general wanted for war crimes, is hiding with the help of Serbian security services, according to Vuk Draskovic, foreign minister of Serbia and Montenegro.
It is the first admission by a senior Serbian official since Gen Mladic, who is wanted on an international warrant, went into hiding after the Bosnian war a decade ago.
"It is only logical that the security services know where Mladic is. They know this if he is in Serbia, and they know if he is not.They are paid to know," Mr Draskovic told the Financial Times. "Without that kind of protection, without that kind of network, it would be impossible for Mladic to be invisible," he added.
Mr Draskovic's statement undermines severely Belgrade's long-held claim that Serbian officials do not know Gen Mladic's whereabouts and therefore cannot arrest and extradite him for trial at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia in The Hague.
The outspoken foreign minister is an uneasy ally of Vojislav Kostunica, Serbia's conservative prime minister.
He has often criticised Serbia for failing to co-operate fully with the tribunal.
But Mr Draskovic has sharpened his rhetoric as April 12th approaches, when the European Commission is due to make a key decision on Serbia's relationship to the EU.
At stake is whether the Commission concludes that talks should begin on a stabilisation and association agreement with Serbia - a waystation to EU membership - or instead delays such a decision.
Commission officials say Serbia has until the end of this week to make more progress. A key development came with yesterday's voluntary surrender of Sreten Lukic, a retired Serb general indicted for alleged crimes during the Kosovo war in 1999. However, government officials in Belgrade said they had lost track of Nebojsa Pavkovic, the other retired general whose extradition the EU is looking for.