Video Shows Fugitive Mladic Moving Freely

The video footage, discovered during various raids on the homes of Mladic’s wife and son by Serbian authorities, were handed over the the prosecution at the Hague-based International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, ICTY, Dusan Ignjatovic, director of the Serbian office for cooperation with The Hague, told Balkan Insight and the BIRN Justice Report.

Ignjatovic would not reveal the details about where and when the videos were found, but said his office would hold a press conference later today in Belgrade on the issue.

FTV’s “60 minutes” political talk show last night aired several amateur videos featuring Mladic and his family, showing Mladic attending the funeral of his daughter Ana, who committed suicide in 1994, celebrating the birth of his grandchild and at his son Darko’s wedding. In the videos, Mladic is accompanied by his wife, Bosiljka, who lives in Belgrade. Her apartment was been raided several times, as has her son’s apartment.

The wedding video shows Mladic and his wife dancing to the live music of Sarajevo pop band Plavi Orkestar – a favorite among the older generations of the former Yugoslavia, especially in Sarajevo, which was kept under seige for more than three and a half years by Mladic’s forces.

In most of the footage, Mladic is surrounded by many people, with strangers approaching him to take photographs with him. Some of the footage was filmed in Bosnia and some in military baracks in Serbia, according to the show’s host, Bakir Hadziomerovic.

There is one segment of footage that shows Mladic attending the wedding of one of his bodyguards in the Eastern Sarajevo suburb of Kula. In the footage, the cars driving by have new Bosnian license plates issued in 1998 and beyond. Another video shows a clearly older Mladic hiding what appears to be a cane behind his back.

Speaking to Balkan Insight, the talk show’s main journalist, Damir Kaletovic, said that aside from the video of Mladic attending his daughter’s funeral in 1994, most of the footage was shot after the end of the 1992-1995 war in Bosnia, and after the indictment against him by the ICTY.

Kaletovic said “60 Minutes” obtained the videos from foreign intelligence sources, the identities of which could not be revealed.

Mladic is indicted by the Hague-based International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, ICTY, for genocide committed in ten Bosnian cities, crimes against humanity and violations of the laws and customs of war.

He was first indicted together with wartime Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic on 25 June 1995. The amended indictment was filed in November the same year, and the most recent one in November 2002. In the last indictment, Mladic’s case is separate from that of Karadzic.

Karadzic was arrested last July in Belgrade after years of hiding. When apprehended, he was operating under the false identity of Dragan Dabic and working as an alternative medicine practitioner. According to reports, Karadzic, though a fugitive from the ICTY, had been living and moving around freely in Belgrade.

Throughout, Serbian authorities have insisted that they do no know the whereabouts of Mladic. Former Hague chief prosecutor Carla del Ponte, until very end of her mandate, was convinced that Mladic was hiding in Serbia.

In the lastest report to UN Security Council, ICTY chief prosecutor Serge Brammertz noted that while Serbia had made “additional progress in its cooperation” with the court, “the search for and arrest of Ratko Mladic and Goran Hadzic ” remained “the central issue in relation to Serbia’s cooperation”.