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A former chief of police under Bosnia's wartime leader Radovan Karadzic was to give himself up to the UN war crimes court at The Hague. The decision came after Belgrade officials negotiated his surrender. Mico Stanisic, who served as interior minister in the Bosnian Serb breakaway state led by Karadzic during the 1992-95 war, has been charged with 10 counts of war crimes for his role as commander of the military police force. His indictment, unsealed on Thursday night by war crimes tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, holds Stanisic responsible for atrocities carried out by his subordinates and says he took part in a criminal scheme to persecute Bosnia's Muslims in 1992.
The charges include extermination, murder, torture, deportation and cruel treatment. If convicted, he faces life imprisonment. "The objective ... was to permanently remove and ethnically cleanse, by force or other means, Bosnian Muslims, Bosnian Croats and other non-Serbs from the territory of the planned Serbian state," the indictment said. After the war in neighbouring Bosnia, Stanisic lived freely in Belgrade. The government said he was persuaded to give himself up after talks with officials. His surrender was hailed as a "moral and patriotic decision, in the best interest of the state." Stanisic's departure is the latest in a series of government-brokered surrenders here. Since January, four ranking Serb generals have given themselves up and are now in custody at The Hague, Netherlands. The government expects these surrenders will improve Belgrade's chances of establishing closer ties with the European Union. Serbia-Montenegro the former Yugoslavia's successor state aspires to full EU membership but that hinges on extradition of war crimes suspects. Conservative Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica has been reluctant to arrest the suspects, asking instead their voluntary surrender to the UN tribunal which many in Serbia consider biased against Serbs. Belgrade has been under huge international pressure to arrest Ratko Mladic, the Bosnian Serb military commander and another top fugitive along with Karadzic. But officials repeatedly deny Western claims that Mladic is hiding in Serbia.
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