By IRNA,
London : The British government has played down claims that it ordered its troops not to capture former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic shortly after he was indicted for genocide and war crimes 13 years ago.
“We have no knowledge of this alleged incident and we would not comment on intelligence matters,” a spokesman for the Ministry of Defence said.
“The UK has been fully committed from the outset to bringing to justice indicted war criminals from the former Yugoslavia,” the spokesman was quoted saying by the Daily Telegraph Monday.
The denial comes after former UN political affairs officer in Bosnia and a Hague Tribunal investigator, James Luko, told a Belgrade newspaper that the former UK commander in Bosnia was ordered by London to leave Karadzic alone in August 1997.
Luko, who spent several years in Belgrade before resigning in 2005, claimed he was one of three people present after Gen Angus Ramsay was told by his superiors in London not to capture the former Bosnian Serb leader.
“We are not police, we are soldiers, and therefore this is not our responsibility. The police force of Republika Srpska must arrest Karadzic. International troops may help afterwards, if there is unrest in Banja Luka,” Ramsay allegedly said.
A report in the same newspaper last week claimed that Karadzic was living under US protection until the CIA caught him breaking an agreement to stay out of politics.
In his first appearance before The Hague Tribunal, Karadzic claimed that Richard Holbrooke, the former assistant secretary of state, had guaranteed him immunity if he withdrew from public life.