By Vesna Peric Zimonjic
BELGRADE, Mar 24 2005 (IPS)

Reports have re-surfaced that Serbian war crime suspects are hiding in Russia, despite strong Russian denials..

The dispute arose after former Bosnian Serb police chief Gojko Jankovic wanted by the International Criminal Tribunal for Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) for war crimes against Muslims in the 1992-95 war in Bosnia surrendered to the tribunal. Media reports say he was in Russia for five years before he returned to the Bosnian Serb capital Banjaluka to surrender.

His wife Milica told local media she had visited him in Moscow last December. Jankovic showed her a Russian passport in the name of Sergey Plutsadiev, she said. She also spoke of meeting a man who showed her an identification document as an agent of the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB), heir to KGB. The development, which Bosnian Serb authorities declined to comment on, sparked another debate on the controversial links between Serbs and Russians. Since the war ended in 1995, Bosnia is made of two entities, the Muslim Croat Federation and the Bosnian Serb Republic, which had and still maintains close ties with neighbouring Serbia.

The Russian embassy in Bosnia-Herzegovina has said no war crimes suspects were being sheltered in Russia.

"All persons indicted for war crimes must be brought to justice," the embassy said in a statement. "The official Russian bodies have never considered granting asylum or citizenship to persons indicted for war crimes." Russia, the statement added, was fully cooperating with the ICTY. The ICTY is trying leaders for crimes through the years of war in the nineties that led to the death of some 200,000 people, most of them Bosnian Muslims.

Serbia and Russia were close in those days of communism, though they also shared the same Christian Orthodox faith.

At the start of the wars in former Yugoslavia in 1991, former Serb leader Slobodan Milosevic described Russia as the only friend of Serbia as the country was isolated by the West.

Milosevic’s brother Borislav has lived in Moscow since then, first as Serbian ambassador and then as businessman. After Milosevic’s downfall in 2000 his son Marko fled to Russia, where he was joined in 2003 by his once powerful mother Mira Markovic.

But now, analysts say, even if war crimes suspects of Serb origin are hiding in Russia, it is only partially about the old friendship.

"Private connections between former operatives of security services are the channels that provided protection for people indicted by the tribunal," former head of Serbian army security, Gen. Aleksandar Vasiljevic told Serbian media. "Russian authorities are indifferent towards the problem."

Other analysts see other factors. "It’s all about money," security analyst Aleksandar Radic told IPS. "In the early 90s, parts of the former KGB turned to business and started to cooperate with new Serbian businessmen."

These businessmen who were close to Milosevic’s regime thrived under two rounds of international sanctions against Serbia imposed due to its role in the war in Bosnia. One of the most prominent businessmen under the sanctions was Milosevic’s son Marko.

Russia was one of few places they could go to or take their capital to. "The remaining connections provided shelter for those wanted by law," Radic added.

Russian diplomats in Belgrade acknowledge that personal links could exist. "The KGB was transformed in 1991, after the Soviet Union fell apart," first secretary of the Russian embassy Alona Kudrijatavtzeva told Serbian media.

"Many agents lost their jobs, many went into business," Kudrijatavtzeva said. "It is possible that some were involved in illegal transactions, but I have no information on whether those people have any connections with parts of the Serbian intelligence community or the network that would protect fugitives from justice."

Serbian media carried a statement by Russian analyst Alexander Pikayev that "it was possible that some fugitives from justice were hiding in Russia." But these could be private deals, Pikayev added.

"This was definitely not the policy of the Russian government that voted for the establishment of the ICTY in the Security Council of the United Nations in 1993," he said. "Russia would risk harming its image by providing shelter to people wanted by ICTY."

Handing over of all fugitives of Serb origin from justice has become one of the preconditions for Serbia to obtain the feasibility study for joining the European Union (EU). Its case is due to be discussed by the EU mid-April.

One of the fugitives believed to be hiding in Russia is former police general Vlastimir Djordjevic, commander in the southern Serbian province of Kosovo in 1999.

Serb security forces described the rebellion of local ethnic Albanians at the time as "terrorism". The ICTY wants Djordjevic for his role in the mass eviction of some 800,000 Albanians from their homes, and the death of some 10,000 civilians. Djordjevic was thought to have fled from Serbia in 2001 following an ICTY indictment.

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