OSCE Chairman welcomes arrest of war crimes indictee Zdravko Tolimir

MADRID, 2 June 2007 - The OSCE Chairman-in-Office, Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos, said today he welcomed the arrest of war crimes indictee Zdravko Tolimir on the Bosnian-Serbian border.

Retired General Tolimir, who has been charged with genocide, extermination, murder, persecution and forcible transfer and deportation, was one of six remaining fugitives wanted by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY). Tolimir was one of the top aides to the wartime Bosnian Serb military commander, General Ratko Mladic, during the 1995 genocide in Srebrenica and is considered to be the third most-wanted war crimes suspect in the Western Balkans, after General Mladic and the Bosnian Serb wartime political leader, Radovan Karadzic.

"The OSCE encourages the authorities of Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia to fulfil their obligations towards the ICTY," Moratinos said. "I appeal to the authorities of these two countries, as well as their neighbouring countries, to increase mutual co-operation and efforts to finally bring all remaining fugitives to justice."