Moscow has no information that suspected war criminal Goran Hadzic, arrested earlier on Wednesday in Serbia, was hiding in Russia for some time, a source in the Russian Foreign Ministry said.
Serbia's Pravda daily reported earlier on Wednesday that Hadzic, internationally wanted on charges of war crimes in Serbia in the 1990s, was hiding in Russia for quite a while and returned to Serbia two years ago. The newspaper did not specify where exactly in Russia Hadzic was hiding.
"We have no information on the former whereabouts of Hadzic," the source in the Russian diplomatic ministry said.
Former Croatian Serb General Hadzic was arrested early on Wednesday in the Fruska Gora region, north of Belgrade, not far from his family home.
Hadzic, 52, was the most wanted suspect by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) after the arrests of former Bosnian Serb president Radovan Karadzic in 2008 and former Bosnian Serb army chief Ratko Mladic earlier this year.
The Serbian authorities earlier promised a reward of five million euros (over $7 million) for information on Hadzic's whereabouts.
European Union representatives repeatedly stated that the arrest of Hadzic was an indispensable condition for Serbia's accession to the EU.
