PODGORICA (AP) - The United Nations envoy for human rights in Montenegro has criticized authorities here for failing to charge four prominent figures in a high-profile sex-trafficking case. In comments published yesterday in the daily Dan, UN Human Rights Commissioner for Serbia-Montenegro Laurie Wiseberg said that “plenty of evidence came forth in the investigation.” “The prominent figures (involved) should have been charged if the evidence incriminated them,” Wiseberg was quoted as saying. Wiseberg’s comments echoed similar international criticism of Montenegro’s handling of the sex scandal which erupted last year after a Moldovan girl escaped from a brothel and accused four prominent figures — including a deputy state prosecutor — of forcing her into prostitution.

SARAJEVO (Reuters). Bosnian-Serb police came in for rare international praise yesterday for their first operation to arrest a top war crimes suspect, a sign of willingness to cooperate with the United Nations tribunal in The Hague. The UN war crimes tribunal, the European Union and NATO hailed Wednesday’s raid in the northeastern town of Bijeljina even though it failed to net the suspect, Bosnian-Serb wartime leader Radovan Karadzic, one of the world’s most wanted men. “It is the first time that Bosnian police were involved in such an operation and it is a good step,” the tribunal’s prosecution spokeswoman Florence Hartmann told Reuters.

The NATO-led Stabilization Force (SFOR) has seized over four tons of illegal weapons remaining from the 1992-95 Bosnian war in the Serb-run northwestern town of Prijedor, a spokesman said yesterday. SFOR soldiers seized Wednesday 729 hand grenades, 334 rockets and 274 rocket launchers stored in two barns after a local citizen tipped them off about their location, SFOR spokesman Ian Hamilton told AFP. (AFP)

A Bosnian Serb charged with a litany of killings and beatings as the commander of a detention camp during the 1992-95 Bosnian war pleaded guilty at the Hague tribunal yesterday to four counts of crimes against humanity. Dragan Nikolic reversed a not guilty plea made in 2000 after reaching a plea agreement with prosecutors. He admitted to the persecution, murder and torture of Muslim prisoners and aiding and abetting sexual violence at the camp. (Reuters)

A group of prisoners took control of part of a prison in western Kosovo yesterday to protest conditions at the facility, a UN spokesman said. Prisoners in Dubrava, 70 kilometers (45 miles) west of the capital, Pristina, have prevented guards from entering one of the prison’s five blocks, said Neraj Singh, a UN spokesman. They are demanding an improvement in living conditions and food at the prison, which is the largest in Kosovo, Singh said. (AP)

The war crimes trial of Slobodan Milosevic was halted yesterday due to the former Yugoslav leader’s health problems, which have already caused the trial to be suspended several times since it opened early last year. It was not known when the trial would resume. (AFP)