The last remaining fugitive wanted for committing atrocities during the Balkans war has been tracked down after trying to sell off an expensive painting.
Goran Hadzic, 52, was captured this week in the mountainous Fruska Gora region in northern Serbia after eight years on the run.
Investigators found his trail when the cash-strapped former warehouseman tried to sell the painting Portrait of a Man, apparently by Italian artist Amedeo Modigliani.
The painting, dated 1918, was found in December at the home of Zoran Mandic -- a friend of Hadzic -- in Novi Sad, where he used to live.
He claims to have obtained it in 1991, but authorities suspect it belonged to Hadzic.
Hadzic, who led the Croatian Serb enclave of Krajina, was arrested on a road near the Krusedol Orthodox monastery and did not resist.
A Serbian agent told The Times: 'We nabbed him while he was about to meet a helper.
'He had changed his appearance somewhat and had fake papers on him. He did not resist arrest, but we were ready for all contingencies.'
Inital reports claimed Hadzic had been hiding in the monastery, but these were denied by Serbia's chief war crimes investigator Vladimir Vukcevic.
Mr Vukcevic said: 'The breakthrough was information that he wanted to sell a stolen Modigliani painting as he was running out of money.'
TV footage of the war crimes suspect showed he had lost much of his hair and now sports a moustache, rather than a trademark beard.
Hadzic is the last of 161 war crimes suspects wanted by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia.
He faces 14 charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity for the murder and 'ethnic cleansing' of thousands of people in Krajina between 1991 and 1993.
He is also accused of involvement in the massacre at Vukovar in 1991, in which 250 people were taken out of the hospital and executed, as well as three other massacres at Dalj, Erdut and Lovas.
Carl Bildt, former UN envoy to the Balkans, said: 'Twenty years after the start of the wars of Yugoslav disintegration an important chapter in the history of the region is closed when the last person indicted for war crimes by the UN tribunal is arrested.'
The capture follows the arrest of military commander Ratko Mladic in May and Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic in July 2008.
All 45 Serb suspects have now been apprehended by Serbia.
Mladic's arrest is believed to have led directly to Hadzic, but many suspect some authorities knew where he had been hiding.
Hadzic -- an ethnic Serb -- was an official in Slobodan Milosevic's Serbian Democratic Party.
He was indicted in 2004 by The Hague tribunal, but disappeared from his home hours before he could be arrested after a tip-off.
The tribunal is due to close at the end of 2012, but will still hear cases until 2014.
His arrest was the final demand of the war crimes tribunal and could boost Serbian hopes of becoming a candidate later this year for eventual entry to the EU.
Serbian President Boris Tadic said: 'With this, Serbia, has concluded its most difficult chapter in the cooperation with The Hague Tribunal.
'Serbia did not know where Goran Hadzic was. Our security and intelligence agency as well as members of the Interior Ministry have carried out their duties in accordance with law.'
More than 10,000 people died in the Croatian war which ended when Zagreb retook territories held by the Serbs in 1995.
The country's post-war authorities have for years faced accusations that they are not doing enough to hunt down war crimes suspects.
WANTED FOR WAR CRIMES
Slobodan Milosevic
The former nationalist president was extradited to The Hague tribunal in 2001 on numerous counts including genocide and torture, but died in 2006 while on trial.
Milan Babic
The first president of the breakaway Krajina province, admitted crimes against humanity and was jailed for 13 years. He committed suicide in his cell in The Hague in 2006.
Radovan Karadzic
The former psychiatrist was arrested in Belgrade in 2008 on charges of crimes against humanity. The trial in The Hague has been delayed numerous times.
Ratko Mladic
A top military commander, Mladic was arrested in May after years on the run and faces war crimes and genocide charges at The Hague.
© Daily Mail, London |
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