UN prosecutor urges delay on Kosovo future status

UNITED NATIONS, June 19 (Reuters) The prosecutor of the UN war crimes court for the Balkans urged a delay in deciding the future of Kosovo, saying it would interfere with her quest to get major fugitives arrested for trial.

Carla Del Ponte, prosecutor for the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in The Hague, also complimented Serbia's cooperation with the court but said it would not be complete until two key suspects, Bosnian Serbs Radovan Karadzic and Gen Ratko Mladic were in custody.

Although Kosovo's future is not part of her mandate, Del Ponte told reporters yesterday, after a speech to the UN Security Council, that an immediate decision on independence for the Serbian province would add to political controversy facing Belgrade's leaders.

''It's political and it could interfere in cooperation with us'' on the remaining fugitives, she said. ''It would be better if the decision on Kosovo is not coming out now.'' Russia, an ally of Serbia, has blocked a Western-backed council resolution that would pave the way for independence by Kosovo's 90 percent Albanian majority. Moscow has called for a delay, as has France.

Del Ponte ends her term of office in mid-September and yesterday gave her last address to the UN Security Council. She argued that the court should stay open, even if in greatly reduced form, until four remaining suspects were jailed.

Aside from Karadzic and Mladic, the others are Stojan Zupljanin, onetime chief of police in Banja Luka and later an adviser to the Bosnian Serb president, and Goran Hadzic, for former president of the so-called Republic of Serbian Krajina in Croatia.

''We believe that these fugitives are currently in Serbia or within Serbia's reach'' or other states in the region, she said.

But Karadzic, the civilian war time leader, ''has disappeared from the radar screens of the relevant services and it seems that no one is actively searching for him.'' RUSSIA WANTS TRIBUNAL SHUT DOWN The Yugoslav tribunal, created in 1993, is under pressure by the council to complete trials by 2008 and finish appeals by 2010. Russia warned Del Ponte and the president of the court, Fausto Pocar, to wrap up their work.

''We do not accept attempts to reinterpret the completion strategy of the ICTY,'' Russia's UN Ambassador Vitaly Churkin told the council. ''The fact that the tribunal does not have several of the accused before it cannot serve as a justification for the extension of this body.'' Churkin also said the prosecutor was not ''infallible'' and had accused Russia of harboring fugitives. He noted that Vlastimir Djordjevic, a Serbian police general indicted for alleged crimes against humanity in Kosovo, was arrested on Sunday in the town of Budva on Montenegro's Adriatic coast.

Serbian papers said he had lived in Montenegro for years.

But Montenegrin media quoted police sources as saying he had arrived from Russia last week, entering the country on fake papers in what they suggested was a set-up for arrest.

Del Ponte, however, for the first time in her council speeches, complimented Belgrade, whose cooperation with the tribunal is one condition for European Union membership.

''The backlog of outstanding and partially responded requests since March this year was reduced from over 250 to less than 50,'' she said. ''This illustrates recent positive developments in Serbia's level of cooperation with my office.'' But she said that ''full cooperation'' included ''full access to documents and the arrest and transfer of fugitives to The Hague, in particular Ratko Mladic.'' With many trials now conducted by national courts, Del Ponte said the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe should monitor the courts, particularly in Croatia.

''The temptation of the respective governments to interfere in these processes is still very present,'' she said.

REUTERS SBA BST0700