Mladic lookalike sparks police action
A Bosnian businessmans apartment in Vienna was stormed by a special police unit amid claims the man was fugitive war criminal Ratko Mladic.Bosnian newspapers reported that Avdo S., who settled in Austria 18 years ago, was woken up from his afternoon nap by a heavily armed police last weekend.Now Rudolf Gollia, a spokesman for the Austrian interior ministry, confirmed the incident. Gollia explained that police decided to take action after having received an anonymous tip-off claiming that the entrepreneur was the former Republika Srpska army general. Mladic is accused of war crimes in the 1990s Balkans conflict.Gollia said today (Fri) Viennese police “did not encounter” Mladic in the raid last Saturday, adding that the Bosnian businessman had an “objective resemblance” with the wanted ex-general.Reports in Bosnian newspapers have it that Viennese police officers only left after establishing that the man was not Mladic after seeing that he did not possess the wanted man’s birthmark.Avdo S. is quoted as saying: “I cant believe this happened to me. Im a respected businessman and was chased away from Bosnia by this criminal. Now I get mistaken for him!”Serbia is offering 10 million Euros for information leading to Mladic’s capture, but international media claim some high-ranking politicians in the country have helped hide the former army chief.Vienna polices mix-up evokes memories of claims from 2008 that former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic worked as a quack in the Austrian capital.Karadzic was arrested in Serbian capital Belgrade in July 2008. He is currently preparing for his war crimes trial in The Hague in the Netherlands in which he plans to defend himself.