Russia, US Blocked Karadzic Catch

Book: Russia, US Blocked Karadzic Catch

By ANGELA DOLAND

PARIS (AP) - Both Russia and the United States intervened at times to prevent the capture of Bosnian Serb war crimes fugitive Radovan Karadzic, who is on the run from genocide charges, a former U.N. official says in a new book.

Author Florence Hartmann says much of the information in "Paix et chatiment" (Peace and Punishment), in French bookstores Monday, comes from behind-closed-doors conversations and events she recorded as former spokeswoman for Carla del Ponte, chief prosecutor at the U.N. war crimes tribunal for the former Yugoslavia.

The book describes the United States and France blaming each other for letting Karadzic slip through the cracks, with officials in each country suggesting the other had a secret deal to protect him.

Karadzic and his military chief, Gen. Ratko Mladic, are accused of orchestrating the 1995 massacre of 8,000 Muslim boys and men from Srebrenica - Europe's worst carnage since World War II - and laying siege to the Bosnian capital of Sarajevo. Both are charged with genocide and crimes against humanity.

The tribunal is scheduled to wind up its work by 2010. In June, del Ponte described the failure to apprehend the fugitives as "a permanent stain" on the tribunal.

Hartmann's book says former French President Jacques Chirac tried to persuade world leaders of the need to capture Karadzic in 1997 during a meeting in the garden of the French presidential palace. Former President Bill Clinton, supported by former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, insisted the arrest could not go forward without informing Russia, though it was known to be "firmly opposed to Karadzic's arrest," Hartmann writes.

Chirac finally relented. In a 2000 meeting with del Ponte, Chirac told her, "Karadzic wasn't arrested because of Russian opposition," the book says.

According to Hartmann's account, Chirac said that - though he had no proof - he believed the United States had signed a secret deal promising to shield Karadzic to facilitate the peace accords in Dayton, Ohio, that ended Bosnia's three-year civil war.
The State Department has repeatedly denied any secret deal with Karadzic, who disappeared from public view in 1998. Chirac's office declined to comment on the book.

In January 2004, del Ponte was told that Karadzic was under surveillance and that his arrest was imminent. The Serbs asked France to transfer him to The Hague, "to the great displeasure of the Americans, who intervened to suspend the operation," Hartmann writes. She did not cite clear evidence to back up that claim.

There were also accusations of French deals with war crimes fugitives.

In March 2000, the book says, del Ponte asked Wesley Clark, former NATO supreme allied commander, whether the U.S. had a secret agreement with Karadzic. Clark in turn accused Chirac of cutting a pact with Karadzic and Mladic to win the release of two
French pilots held by Bosnian Serbs for three months in 1995, Hartmann wrote.

Clark's office did not immediately respond to a call seeking comment.

Responding to the book, French Foreign Ministry spokesman Frederic Desagneaux said: "France has taken part for years in the active search for suspected war criminals, in close cooperation with local authorities and the other members of the international community that are present there."