UPDATED ON:
TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 20, 2007
12:39 MECCA TIME, 9:39 GMT
 
NEWS EUROPE
Homes of Karadzic children raided
Nato troops used 'minor force' to break into the
flat of Karadzic's daughter [Reuters]
Nato soldiers have raided the homes of the daughter and son of Radovan Karadzic, the former Bosnian Serb leader wanted for trial on war crimes charges.

Sonja Karadzic-Jovicevic and Sasa Karadzic are suspected of helping their father avoid facing the UN war crimes tribunal which 11 years ago accused him of crimes during Bosnia's 1992-1995 war.
"The search was conducted in an effort to find additional information about Radovan Karadzic's support network and in an effort to determine his location," Nato said.

"We believe that both are associated with the network supporting Radovan Karadzic," Derek Chappell, Nato spokesman, said
He added that "minor force" had been used to break into the flat of Karadzic's daughter, but there was no resistance from her once they had entered.

"We had very productive interviews with both parties," Chappell said, but refused to go into details. "We also took five boxes of items."

Overnight raid

Sonja Karadzic answered a phone call from the Associated Press news agency as troops were entering the building where she lives with her husband and two children.

"They [Karadzic's family] are in touch with him, they receive money from him, help him, maybe even meet with him"

Raffi Gregorian, deputy high representative
in Bosnia and Herzegovina
"Someone is breaking in. We and the neighbours asked who they are and they said 'police'," she said before hanging up.

The overnight raid in Pale, a small town about 15km east of Sarajevo, was the latest in a series of raids on the homes of the Karadzic family members and alleged supporters.

A senior diplomat told a Bosnian newspaper on February 14 that Karadzic is still in contact with his family and helps them financially.

Raffi Gregorian, the deputy to the international community's envoy in Bosnia, told the Dnevi Avaz newspaper: "We know that Karadzic financially supports his family ... I can say that they were receiving money last year. 
  
"They are in touch with him, they receive money from him, help him, maybe even meet with him."
  
Gregorian, who has called for the property of Karadzic's family members to be confiscated, added that they were "at the centre of his support network."

War crimes suspects

Karadzic and Ratko Mladic, his former military chief, are the most senior of six Serb war crimes suspects still wanted by the UN court based in the Hague.

The former Bosnian Serb leader has been accused of genocide over the July 1995 massacre of about 8,000 Muslim men in Srebrenica, the single worst atrocity in Europe since the second world war.
  
The authorities have little knowledge of Karadzic's whereabouts, but he is thought to be hiding in Serb-controlled parts Bosnia, or in a remote part of neighbouring Montenegro, where he spent his childhood.
Source: Agencies
Related:
Del Ponte against EU Serbia talks  
(31 Jan 2007)
Bosnian Serb jailed for war crimes  
(16 Feb 2007)
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