War suspect's laptop found?

2008-08-12 16:02

Belgrade - Serbia's war crimes authorities said on Tuesday they had found a laptop they suspect belongs to arrested Bosnian Serb war crimes suspect Radovan Karadzic.

The laptop - in a bag also containing 55 CDs, newspaper articles and two books - was discovered on a road on the outskirts of the Serbian capital Belgrade on Monday afternoon, said the war crimes cooperation council.

The council suspected that the "bag found on the Batajnica road belonged to Radovan Karadzic, it said in a statement.

"DNA analysis is currently being conducted in order to determine whether ... the items found really belong to ... Radovan Karadzic," it added.

Karadzic, 63, was arrested on July 31 while riding a bus which, according to reports, would have been travelling through Belgrade towards the outer suburb of Batajnica.

The wartime Bosnian Serb leader has since been transferred to the UN war crimes court in The Hague, where he is to be tried for genocide and crimes against humanity for his role in the Srebrenica massacre and siege of Sarajevo.

At the time, Karadzic's brother Luka and lawyer Svetozar Vujacic said Serbian authorities had confiscated the laptop and more than 50 discs containing documents prepared for his defence.

Karadzic, who refused to enter a plea in his first appearance before the UN's International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) late last month, is due to appear before the court next on August 29.

- AFP