The sentences handed down against Croatian generals Ante Gotovina and Mladen Markac are proportional to the crimes committed and Croatia must accept them, a former chief prosecutor of the Hague war crimes tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, Carla del Ponte, said in an interview run by the Novi Sad-based Dnevnik daily on Sunday.
Del Ponte noted, however, that for the verdicts to become final, the appeals proceedings needed to be completed.
Since in her recent statement for the Sarajevo-based daily Oslobodjenje she said that she believed that Bosnian Serb commander Ratko Mladic would be arrested, Dnevnik wanted to know what her assessment was based on and if she had been in touch with her successor, Serge Brammertz.
Del Ponte said that her statement about Mladic's arrest was her personal estimate and that she believed that the Serbian government had the political will to arrest him, but that locating him in the right moment so that he could be arrested was a problem.
She added that Mladic was in Serbia because it was only there that he could enjoy the protection he still had thanks to his numerous friends and supporters.
