BELGRADE, Sept 27 - Serbia

BELGRADE, Sept 27 - Ser­bia has pro­po­sed a for­mer con­fi­dant of top war cri­mes fugi­tive Ratko Mla­dic as the new Defence Minis­ter of Ser­bia and Mon­te­ne­gro, rai­sing spe­c­u­la­tion that it is look­ing for ways to induce his sur­ren­der.
Gene­ral Zoran Stanko­vic, a pat­ho­lo­gist and for­mer direc­tor of the Bel­grade mili­tary hos­pi­tal, devel­o­ped a close rela­tion­ship with Mla­dic after per­for­ming an autopsy on his only daugh­ter, Ana, who kil­led her­self in the mid-1990s.
Ser­bian media say Bel­grade hopes that fri­endship could con­vince Mla­dic to give him­self up for trial at the Uni­ted Nations tri­bu­nal which has indicted him on two char­ges of geno­cide for the 43-month siege of Sara­jevo and the 1995 Sre­bre­nica mas­sacre of some 8,000 Mus­lims. (reuters)