Major Bosnian War-Crimes Suspect Caught

NATO troops on Wednesday made their biggest move yet against Balkan war crimes suspects, arresting a commander of a Bosnian Serb unit accused of massacring several thousand Muslims.

In the summer of 1995, Gen. Radislav Krstic helped lead the notorious Drina Corps into the U.N. “safe haven” of Srebrenica, where more than 7,000 Muslim men and boys disappeared after the enclave was overrun. The Srebrenica massacre has been called the worst atrocity in Europe since World War II.

Krstic is the highest-ranking war crimes suspect captured since Bosnia-Herzegovina’s war ended in December 1995.

He was captured by U.S. troops Wednesday in a section of northern Bosnia they patrol and was delivered to the international war crimes tribunal at The Hague, the tribunal announced in a brief statement.

The tribunal’s official statement gave no details of the secret operation to arrest Krstic, who is the ninth person arrested in the former Yugoslav federation on war crimes charges. More than a dozen others have gone to The Hague voluntarily to stand trial.

In a brief statement from Brussels, North Atlantic Treaty Organization Secretary-General Javier Solana said Krstic’s arrest had been carried out in line with the peacekeeping force’s mandate, which authorizes it to detain indicted war crimes suspects encountered in the course of its duties.

In a statement issued at the United Nations, the tribunal’s chief prosecutor, Louise Arbour, expressed appreciation to the troops and their commanders for their professionalism and for the support they are giving the tribunal.

During the war, Krstic was deputy commander of the Drina Corps, which seized Srebrenica when it was supposed to be under U.N. protection. A secret indictment filed Oct. 30 alleges that, as a commander of the Drina Corps, Krstic “committed genocide during the fall of the U.N. safe area of Srebrenica between July 11, 1995, and Nov. 1, 1995.”

It holds Krstic “directly responsible” for genocide and also charges that he was responsible for crimes committed by soldiers serving under him.

Tribunal Judge Florence Mumba confirmed the indictment Nov. 2 and ordered it sealed to avoid tipping off Krstic.

Krstic apparently still serves in the Bosnian Serb army, Arbour said, calling him “a very significant military leader.”

As such a senior officer, Krstic could be valuable to the tribunal as a potential witness against Bosnia’s best-known war crimes suspects--army Gen. Ratko Mladic and Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic.

Mladic and Karadzic have been indicted on genocide charges as the suspected organizers of the Srebrenica massacre and other war crimes, but both have dropped out of sight and may have fled Bosnia months ago.

The U.S. reportedly scrubbed a plan to arrest Karadzic earlier this year after a French military officer who frequently met with the Bosnian Serb leader tipped him off. The French government insisted that the officer was acting on his own.

If Krstic cooperates with the U.N. tribunal, he could also provide the link between atrocities in Bosnia and the government of Serbian strongman Slobodan Milosevic.

Krstic planned and carried out the Srebrenica operation with direct backing from Belgrade, asserted Serbian journalist Dejan Anastasijevic, an investigative reporter with the independent magazine Vreme.

“I’m not sure whether he would be able to implicate Milosevic directly,” Anastasijevic said in an interview here in the Serbian and Yugoslav capital. “But he would certainly be able to implicate the Yugoslav army general staff--if he chooses to testify.”

Krstic’s lawyers are likely to argue for his release on the grounds that his health isn’t good, so it may prove difficult to get Krstic to reveal any secrets, Anastasijevic said.

“If they crack him, we will all know more about exactly how Srebrenica happened--and why,” he said.

Krstic took charge of the Drina Corps on the retirement of his commander, Gen. Milenko Zivanovic, who reportedly moved to Serbia, the dominant republic in the rump Yugoslavia.

Milosevic, whom many Bosnians and others want charged by the tribunal as the architect of the Bosnian war, refuses to hand over suspects to the tribunal.

Until Krstic’s arrest, the tribunal at The Hague has dealt mainly with low-ranking officers accused of rape, murder and crimes against humanity on a more limited scale than the charges Krstic faces.

In one such case now in front of the tribunal, Bosnian Croat Anto Furundzija is accused of doing nothing to stop the rape of two prisoners he was questioning May 15, 1993.

NATO troops arrested Furundzija a year ago. He pleaded not guilty to the charges. The tribunal is scheduled to hand down its verdict in his case next Thursday.

Times staff writer John J. Goldman at the United Nations contributed to this report.