This record is a partial extract of the original cable. The full text of the original cable is not available.

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 THE HAGUE 001530 
 
SIPDIS 
 
DEPARTMENT FOR S/WCI - PROSPER/MILLER, EUR - BOGUE, EUR/SCE 
- JONES/GREGORIAN, L/EUR - LAHNE, INR/WCAD - SPRIGG 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 1.6 FIVE YEARS AFTER CLOSURE OF ICTY 
TAGS: PREL PHUM BK HR SR NL ICTY
SUBJECT: ICTY: DEL PONTE GREETS SLJIVANCANIN ARREST WITH 
NEW QUESTIONS ABOUT SAM COOPERATION WITH TRIBUNAL 
 
REF: A. (A) BELGRADE 1393 
     ¶B. (B) THE HAGUE 1510 
 
¶1.  (U)  Classified by Clifton M. Johnson, Legal Counselor. 
Reasons 1.5(d) and 1.6. 
 
¶2.  (C)  Summary.  International Criminal Tribunal for the 
former Yugoslavia (ICTY) Chief Prosecutor Carla Del Ponte 
reacted to the arrest today of outstanding "Vukovar Three" 
fugitive Veselin Sljivancanin with tepid praise and further 
questions about Serbia and Montenegro,s (SAM,s) commitment 
to cooperate with the ICTY.  While welcoming the arrest and 
noting that the presence of all three Vukovar accused in 
custody would facilitate their prosecution, Del Ponte,s 
political adviser emphasized how the circumstances of the 
arrest demonstrated the SAM's lack of full cooperation in 
bringing war criminals into custody.  End summary. 
 
¶3.  (C)  Del Ponte,s political adviser, Jean-Daniel Ruch, 
called embassy legal counselor at Del Ponte,s request to 
convey her views about the arrest today (see ref A) of 
"Vukovar Three" fugitive Sljivancanin.  Ruch acknowledged 
that the arrest was "good news," noting that the accused was 
a "bad guy" who deserved to be brought into custody and that 
his arrest and transfer would permit the three Vukovar 
suspects to be tried together in a single trial.  By trying 
these accused together the prosecution would be able to free 
up a trial team and would be able to conclude its work more 
efficiently. 
 
¶4.  (C)  Ruch then detailed at length three reasons why the 
USG and the international community should not view this 
arrest as a significant demonstration of SAM,s commitment to 
cooperation with the Tribunal.  First, he noted that 
Sljivancanin was arrested while living openly in his own 
house.  Noting that the SAM had been told this for a long 
time by the OTP and would have known it in any event from the 
most rudimentary investigation into the matter, he asked 
rhetorically why SAM had denied for so long that it did not 
know Sljivancanin's whereabouts.  Second, he described the 
arrest as being the result of "pure pragmatism" rather than 
any fundamental shift in SAM,s approach to the ICTY.  He 
observed that the looming certification deadline in the U.S. 
and the upcoming EU Thessaloniki meeting provided the kind of 
pressure that triggered the arrest.  Otherwise, he noted, the 
arrest could have happened weeks or months ago.  Ruch 
continued bitterly,  "we could get all of the outstanding 
Serb fugitives into custody as long as the U.S. certification 
law remains in place for another 17 years." 
 
¶5.  (C)  Finally, Ruch questioned the manner in which the 
arrest was conducted.  "Why," he asked, did SAM "make such a 
spectacle of it?"  Answering his own question, he stated that 
it was "100 percent politics" and that SAM authorities 
"staged" the arrest by involving hundreds of police and then 
waiting ten hours to enter the apartment so as to "provoke" 
Sljivancanin supporters into mounting a visible and dramatic 
resistance.  In this manner, he opined, SAM hoped to show the 
international community how difficult the arrest was and 
receive maximum credit for it.  When Embassy Legal Counselor 
countered that another interpretation of these events was 
that it demonstrated a fundamental change (albeit one 
motivated by pragmatic concerns) in SAM policies towards the 
Tribunal, Ruch replied that time would prove which view was 
correct but that neither he nor Del Ponte expected to see any 
significant additional arrests until this time in the 
certification cycle next year. 
 
¶6.  (C)  The OTP,s public comments on the arrest, while less 
grudging than those conveyed to us in private, also focused 
on what more the SAM should do rather than welcome what it 
had done.  OTP Spokesperson Hartmann observed that "It was 
certainly about time to have him arrested" and said "we 
expect the police to continue searches and find and arrest 
the others, too."  Pointedly, she added that "additional 
arrests were possible at least on the basis of information 
that we have made available." 
 
¶7.  (C)  Comment.  Over the past ten days, Embassy legal 
officers have seen an intense OTP campaign to counter the 
growing perception of improved SAM cooperation with the 
Tribunal (see ref B).  This campaign, while reflecting the 
genuine concerns of OTP investigators and prosecutors, has 
been driven by the Chief Prosecutor.  Ruch emphasized today 
that his comments on the arrest "absolutely" reflected those 
of Del Ponte and was candid in saying that they were 
motivated by an OTP concern that SAM would use carefully 
calibrated gestures of cooperation to manipulate a 
certification decision in its favor.  While the OTP,s spin 
is overcompensating in the opposite direction, Ruch,s basic 
point, that SAM,s conduct after the certification decision 
will show whether we are in fact witnessing a fundamental 
change in its attitude towards the Tribunal, rings true. 
What the OTP leadership does not yet seem to grasp, however, 
is the degree to which its own grudging reaction to positive 
SAM steps could help fulfill its own prophesy.  End comment. 
SOBEL