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Ashdown sacks Serb leaders

Zagreb: The international Governor of Bosnia, Paddy (Lord) Ashdown, on Wednesday launched his toughest crackdown in two years, purging the Bosnian Serb leadership, sacking 60 officials, freezing bank accounts, and issuing travel bans because of their sheltering of Europe's most wanted fugitive, Radovan Karadzic. The Ashdown action followed strong criticism of the Bosnian Serb leadership by NATO heads of government in Istanbul this week and another damning report on Serbian recalcitrance to the U.N. Security Council on Tuesday from Carla Del Ponte, the chief prosecutor in The Hague of the International War Crimes Tribunal for former Yugoslavia. The former British politician directed his crackdown at the leadership of the Serbian Democratic party or SDS, the ruling party in the Serb half of Bosnia that was founded and led by Mr. Karadzic and was the key political vehicle for the mass murder and pogroms known as ethnic cleansing committed during the 1992-95 Bosnian war. Since then the SDS Government has failed to apprehend a single war crimes suspect in its half of Bosnia while Mr. Karadzic is believed to be sheltering there, financed by SDS networks. The biggest casualties of the Ashdown purge were the SDS leader and Speaker of the Bosnian Serb Parliament, Dragan Kalinic, and the Bosnian Serb police chief, Zoran Djeric. Lord Ashdown announced in Sarajevo: ``A small band of corrupt politicians and obstructionists believe that helping Radovan Karadzic and other indictees evade justice is more important than the security and prosperity of ordinary citizens.'' Mr Kalinic admitted he had been sacked ``because of Radovan Karadzic'' and vowed to fight the decision.Lord Ashdown ordered the freezing of 60 SDS bank accounts and transferred half a million euros in funding for the party to organisations committed to human rights and hunting war criminals.

Guardian Newspapers Limited 2004

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