Prosecutor Bars Immunity for Serb Leaders

The chief prosecutor for the international war crimes tribunal on Thursday ruled out any deal to give immunity to top Bosnian Serb leaders--even if they agree to step down to clear the way for a Balkan peace agreement.

Speaking to reporters a few hours after the tribunal, based in The Hague, issued new indictments against Bosnian Serb political leader Radovan Karadzic and military commander Ratko Mladic, prosecutor Richard Goldstone said failure to prosecute those men or other war criminals “won’t lead to peace.”

“I can see absolutely no contradiction between peace negotiations and justice,” Goldstone said after talks with U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott. Earlier, he met with Defense Secretary William J. Perry, CIA Director John M. Deutch and National Security Adviser Anthony Lake.

Goldstone was responding to reports that the Bosnian Serbs will refuse to go along with a peace agreement taking shape in negotiations at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio, unless Karadzic and Mladic are spared prosecution. The reports said that Karadzic and Mladic--accused of ordering murders, rapes and other atrocities during almost four years of warfare--are willing to relinquish power as part of a peace treaty but are not prepared to stand trial.

Goldstone’s no-deals declaration echoed the position of the Clinton Administration, which maintains that there should be no immunity for any of the more than 50 people--most of them Bosnian Serbs--accused of war crimes.

“I am cautiously optimistic that [Karadzic and Mladic] will stand trial sooner or later,” said Goldstone, a former South African judge. He said that he will issue an international arrest warrant for the two men if they are not taken into custody soon.

Goldstone also said that a Bosnian Muslim who served as an officer in the Croatian army has been arrested in the Netherlands on suspicion of participating in the murder of Serbs in Croat-controlled areas of Bosnia-Herzegovina. Goldstone did not identify the suspect because he has not yet been indicted, but he noted that the case will be the first in which a Muslim is accused of atrocities against Serbs.

The Muslim is only the second person to be arrested for Balkan war crimes. The others facing indictment are at large, most of them in Serb-controlled areas of Bosnia.