The Hague war crimes tribunal's chief prosecutor, Serge Brammertz, said on Friday the search for Bosnian Serb fugitive Ratko Mladic was based on the assumption that he was still alive, and dismissed the grounds of his attorney's request that Mladic be declared dead.
He was responding to questions from press at the UN, who asked for a comment on the request made to a Belgrade court last week.
Operatives in Serbia are investigating certain leads. Their and our estimates say that he is still hiding and that the search is justified, said Brammertz.
Asked if he had any concrete information that Mladic was seen somewhere in recent years, which would indicate that he was alive, he would not respond directly, saying he could not go into operational detail and that he did not want to cause difficulties to the Serbian services looking for Mladic.
Brammertz said his Office strongly believed that Mladic was still hiding in the region and that this justified current operations.
Mladic was the wartime commander of the Bosnian Serb army. He has been on the run for 15 years, since the Hague tribunal indicted him for genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes committed in Bosnia-Herzegovina.
Addressing the Security Council earlier today, he recalled that July would mark the 15th anniversary of the genocide in Srebrenica, Bosnia-Herzegovina, saying this was a motive to step up efforts to arrest the Hague tribunal's remaining two fugitives, Mladic and Goran Hadzic.
