The Office of the Prosecutor in the Hague Tribunal notes Stojan Zupljanin’s arrest has proven that the remaining fugitives from international justice are ‘within reach’ of the Serbian authorities, expressing hope that Zupljanin will soon be transferred to the UN Detention Unit and that the remaining three fugitives, Karadzic, Mladic and Hadzic, will follow


Chief prosecutor Serge Brammertz welcomed the arrest of Stojan Zupljanin today. After his arrest, the number of remaining fugitives from the international justice is now down to three, according to OTP spokesperson Olga Kavran. This has proven, Kavran added, ‘what the prosecution has been saying for a long time, that the remaining fugitives are within reach of the Serbian authorities’. The prosecution hopes that Zupljanin will soon be transferred to the UN Detention Unit in The Hague and that the remaining three fugitives, Ratko Mladic, Radovan Karadzic and Goran Hadzic, will follow.

Stojan Zupljanin was indicted in 1999 together with Radoslav Brdjanin and General Momir Talic, for genocide and other crimes in the so-called Autonomous Region of Krajina (ARK) in Northwestern Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1992. Zupljanin was a member of the ARK Crisis Staff and chief of the Security Services Center in Banja Luka. The Security Services Center brought together both the public and the state security service. According to the indictment, the ARK police force responsible for the management of detention camps established in 1992 in Bosanska Krajina operated under Zupljanin's command.

In September 2002, General Talic was released from the UN Detention unit. He died soon after and the charges against him were dropped. Brdjanin, who was sentenced to 30 years in prison in April 2007, is currently serving his sentence in Denmark.

In September 2004, Brdjanin was acquitted of the genocide charge in Bosanska Krajina and the prosecution amended the indictment against Zupljanin, dropping the genocide and participation in genocide charges. Twelve counts of the amended indictment charge Zupljanin with persecution of Bosnian Muslims and Croats on political, ethnic and religious grounds, extermination and willful killing, torture, cruel treatment, deportation and wanton destruction of towns and villages, extensive destruction or deliberate damage to religious buildings. The indictment qualifies these acts as crimes against humanity and violations of laws and customs of war. Zupljanin will enter his plea when he arrives in The Hague at his initial appearance before the Tribunal.

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