'Scandal' of war crimes suspects

Ratko Mladic commanded forces responsible for "ethnic cleansing"

War crimes prosecutor Carla del Ponte has called it "scandalous" that Bosnian Serb suspects Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic remain at large.

Ms del Ponte said the international community is "obliged absolutely" to locate and bring the men to The Hague.

She told the BBC this process will be helped by pressure from the EU, which Serbia and Montenegro wants to join.

She says she expects a concrete result by the tenth anniversary of the Srebrenica massacre, which is in July.

Meanwhile, former Bosnian Serb military officer Vujadin Popovic surrendered himself to the International War Crimes Tribunal on Thursday.

He was indicted in 2002 for genocide and crimes against humanity over his alleged role in the killing of some 8,000 Bosnian Muslims in the town of Srebrenica in 1995.

Mr Popovic, 48, was taken to the court's detention centre after his arrival in the Hague, a tribunal spokesperson said.

He is among at least half a dozen Bosnian Serb suspects who have handed themselves over to the tribunal in the past several months.

Evading capture

The Serb authorities have come under mounting Western pressure to hand over those wanted by the tribunal.

Radovan Karadzic was the Bosnian Serbs' political leader during the war in Bosnia in the 1990s.

He has been indicted on several charges, including genocide, but has evaded attempts by Nato to capture him.

The tribunal also wants Mr Karadzic's former military chief Ratko Mladic to face similar charges.

The indictment says Mr Karadzic and Mr Mladic were responsible for persecution of Bosnian Muslim and Bosnian Croat civilians on national, political and religious grounds in Bosnia-Hercegovina between April 1992 and July 1995.