Just a short look at one of Europe's longest running and most twisted stories. Click on title to read the whole thing.
A senior secret service officer accused of organizing last month's assassination of the Serbian prime minister has approached the Hague war crimes tribunal offering information about the two most wanted Bosnian Serb leaders in exchange for a new identity and asylum abroad, according to diplomatic sources speaking to Belgrade media. Police Col. Milorad Lukovic, known as Legija, has had close ties with Radovan Karadzic, former president of Republika Srpska, and his wartime army commander, Gen. Ratko Mladic, reports said Tuesday. He offered to disclose their present whereabouts through an intermediary, they said. As the two most wanted men in the world by the United Nations, prosecutors could not help but find tempting any authoritative information that could lead to their capture.
So far, the UN's done one helluva job at tracking them down...
Turning that information into custody is another story, however — as is its price. The new Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Zivkovic today said he was sure the tribunal would not agree to such a bargain. "I can believe Lukovic intends to sell Serbian citizens and others down the river just as he has sold his friends and that he is now about to try and sell something else. But I think he hasn't got the goods he is offering to the Hague tribunal and I am sure the tribunal will not enter into any kind of dirty trading with anybody," he declared.
First you've got to intend to catch the rabbit. Otherwise, send out for Chinese...
Lukovic has been on the run since March 12, when reformist Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic was shot and killed while he walked from his car into the government building in Belgrade. Serbian authorities believe Lukovic and his alleged connections to organized crime were behind the assassination. Two men accused with Lukovic of planning the assassination were traced by police to a rural farmhouse outside Belgrade and killed in a shootout last Thursday. They were Dusan Spasojevic, also a former secret service officer, and Mile Lukovic. All three were leaders of Serbia's most powerful criminal gang, known as "Zemun Clan." Police said Tuesday Lukovic may have fled the country on a Croatian passport. The Serbian police ministry said Lukovic possesses a diplomatic passport issued in 1996 in which his profession was given as "an expert." And we know what he is expert in, don't we?
Posted by: Steve ||
04/01/2003 3:03:51 PM ||
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This is interesting. It was announced that Saddam himself would address the worshipful masses. Instead...
The Iraqi information minister, reading a statement he said was from Saddam Hussein, called Tuesday for a jihad, or holy war, against the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq. Wow! We've never heard that before! Scary, isn't it?
"The aggression that the aggressors are carrying out against the stronghold of faith is an aggression on the religion, the wealth, the honor and the soul and an aggression on the land of Islam," Information Minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahhaf said on national television. We want your video collection, too.
"Therefore, jihad is a duty in confronting them," he added, saying "those who are martyred will be rewarded in heaven. Seize the opportunity, my brothers." So, how about leading a charge yourself al-Sahhaf?
The statement was issued as U.S. forces were reported within 50 miles of Baghdad and as B-52 bombers were pounding Republican Guard positions north of Karbala. Time to find your spot in the Fuhrerbunker. Hurry! Don't be late!
Saddam has delivered two televised addresses since the war began March 20. It was unclear why the Iraqi leader did not appear Tuesday. I gotta theory...
"Strike at them, fight them," the statement said. "They are aggressors, evil, accursed by God. You shall be victorious and they shall be vanquished. Fight them everywhere the way you are fighting them today. And don't give them a chance to catch their breath until they declare it and withdraw from the lands of the Muslims, defeated and cursed in this life and the afterlife."
Posted by: Patrick Phillips ||
04/01/2003 12:02:07 PM ||
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
