Rumour mill working to flush out Mladic: experts
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There are conflicting reports about the circumstances surrounding the arrest and little detail on how long authorities had known about Karadzic's secret life in Belgrade. (Reuters)
Reports that former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic was arrested on a tip-off from his military commander Ratko Mladic have been greeted by observers with scepticism.
The story could instead, though, be part of attempts to flush out Mladic, analysts say.
Karadzic is awaiting extradition to The Hague, now beardless and shorn of the flowing locks that made up his disguise.
There are conflicting reports about the circumstances surrounding the arrest and little detail on how long authorities had known about Karadzic's secret life in Belgrade.
German intelligence sources have told journalists about the tip-off by Mladic, the Serb General co-accused with Karadzic of committing war crimes and genocide in Bosnia Herzegovina in the 1990s.
But an intriguing aspect of the claim is that Mladic is still on the run.
Journalist and political analyst Bratislav Grubacic says rumours are rife because authorities have given so little detail about the Karadzic capture.
"We really do not know who arrested him, how it happened, who denounced him, how police or security forces got to know where he was," Mr Grubacic said.
"I do think that this speculation on Mladic betraying Karadzic is absolutely not true because of the sheer fact that Mladic doesn't have any interest to do it and it is hard to believe that Mladic can count that he will be safe if he denounces Karadzic," he said.
Associate professor Aleksander Pavkovic, from Sydney's Macquarie University, says it sounds like a tactic by Serbian authorities to flush Mladic out of hiding.
"I think that this is news put out by a variety of official sources in order to provoke Mladic into defending himself and therefore revealing his whereabouts.
"It is very unlikely that he would have any reason to betray Karadizic at this stage. They were working together and they had their differences during the war, in fact they had a fall-out as well, but it is unlikely that he would have any particular reason and any benefit from dobbing him in at the moment," Dr Pavkovic said.
"He can't gain anything from this kind of action. The speculation is that he has been negotiating about conditions for giving himself over. He allegedly was trying to prevent his extradition to The Hague tribunal.
"He probably knows that he can't, if he is arrested and found out, he won't be able to stop any extradition proceedings, that he would be the greatest prize after Karadzic and therefore would be delivered to The Hague," he said.
Bratislav Grubacic thinks General Mladic is a long way from being brought to justice.
"I do think that in that respect, Mr Mladic is really in a proper hiding together with his wife and I think it would be much more complicated to get hold of him or to get to know where is he," Mr Grubacic said.
"On the other hand, I think Mr Mladic is logistically supported by certain circles. Probably retired military intelligence people.
"So far all the attempts to locate Mr Mladic failed so I do think that it is not really quite clear and I am not sure that many people know where Mladic is. It is possible, it is not excluded, maybe he live 100 metres away from Mr Karadzic," he said.
Based on a report by Simon Santow for The World Today.
