BELGRADE, Sept 27 – Serbia has proposed a former confidant of top war crimes fugitive Ratko Mladic as the new Defence Minister of Serbia and Montenegro, raising speculation that it is looking for ways to induce his surrender.
General Zoran Stankovic, a pathologist and former director of the Belgrade military hospital, developed a close relationship with Mladic after performing an autopsy on his only daughter, Ana, who killed herself in the mid-1990s.
Serbian media say Belgrade hopes that friendship could convince Mladic to give himself up for trial at the United Nations tribunal which has indicted him on two charges of genocide for the 43-month siege of Sarajevo and the 1995 Srebrenica massacre of some 8,000 Muslims. (reuters)