BOSNIAN SERB TERRORISTS POSE DANGER TO THE UNITED KINGDOM AND SPAIN

BOSNIAN SERB TERRORISTS POSE DANGER TO THE SECURITY OF UNITED KINGDOM AND SPAIN

Allies of Radovan Karadzic, the Bosnian Serb leader charged with war crimes by the Hague tribunal, are supplying arms to the REAL IRA ("REAL Irish Republican Army", terrorist group located in the United Kingdom) and other extremist groups across Europe from hideaways in the Serb part of Bosnia, according to a Spanish documentary team that has filmed the Bosnian Serb arms traffickers in action.

Their film - broadcast last night on Spain's third channel, Antena 3 - alleges that a relation of Karadzic, and others in the family's coterie are behind a trade that has turned the Bosnian Serb Republic into an international arms depot supplying groups that include the REAL IRA and the ETA BASQUE BOMBERS ("Basque Homeland and Freedom", terrorist group located in Spain).

The weaponry is shipped through Kosovo, Croatia, and Germany to Ireland and other countries around the world, the Spanish film reports.

The illicit trade is carried on under the nose of the Nato-led SFOR peace force in Bosnia.

NATO has been consistently criticized for failing to arrest Karadzic. As leader of Bosnia's Serbs during the killings and ethnic cleansing of the early 90s, he is one of the men most wanted by the International War Crimes Tribunal in the Hague.

The arms for sale, mostly leftovers from the Bosnian Serb and Yugoslav armed forces and police, include Kalashnikov rifles, M-84 machine guns, M-50 grenades, pistols, explosives and detonators. Night sights and telescopic sights for snipers are also on offer.

A gang of arms traffickers, led by a Karadzic ally, Veljko Borovina, showed the Spaniards exploding bullets, banned by international treaties.

They said they could also get armoured cars and even helicopters, through contacts in the Yugoslav military and the Bosnian Serb army.

The traffickers said that Karadzic's relation was a major arms smuggler who had sold weapons to the Real IRA through Germany. He is believed to be in hiding.

"[He] is totally trustworthy. During the war he trafficked in alcohol, tobacco and arms to finance the Serb army. He has the very best contacts and has sold to the IRA," explained Lario, one of the gang members who led the documentary team to the Bosnian Serb town of Sokolac.

The film makers from El Mundo TV, a production company owned by the Madrid daily El Mundo, posed as drug traffickers buying for paramilitary groups in Colombia.

They started their search for arms in Spain by contacting a well known Croatian gangster with property there. They were passed to a series of Balkan mafia contacts, whom they filmed secretly. The trail led to Budapest in Hungary and on to Bosnia - first Sarajevo, then Kiseljak and, finally, Sokolac.

There they were taken into a forest by Borovina, who is wanted by police in connection with the murder of a former Bosnian Serb police chief Ljubisa Savic - a Karadzic opponent.

Borovina invited his supposed buyers to try out a large range of weaponry.

"We've got Kalashnikovs, machine guns, pistols, grenades, whatever you want," he explained. "These bullets can penetrate a bullet-proof vest and rip it to pieces," he said, showing a hollow bullet banned by international treaties.

He also said he could supply bullets that carry chemicals, which are also banned under international law.

The traffickers explained that most of the weapons had once belonged to the Bosnian Serb army. So many weapons were now on the market, they added, that prices were half the original: a Kalashnikov at £320, an M-84 machine gun at £800. The traffickers agreed a price equaling £1.5m for 200 Kalashnikovs, 75 M-84s, 500 pistols, 50 sniper rifles with telescopic sights, half a tonne of TNT, 1,000 crates of ammunition and 5,000 grenades. Payment was to be made half in cash and half in cocaine.

In Britain, Ulster Unionist MPs recently claimed that Real IRA members were posing as charity workers to travel to the former Yugoslavia to buy arms.

The rocket-propelled grenade launcher used in last September's attack on the MI6 head quarters in London is believed to have been made by Yugoslav Defence Industries and sold by Serbs to the Real IRA. Ireland's Gardai police force discovered last year that the Real IRA had sophisticated Russian RPG18 launchers whose rockets can pierce tank armour.

Last July Croatian police discovered an arms haul destined for the Real IRA that included 10 RPG18s in the town of Dobranje, on the border with Bosnia. A similar shipment, also thought to be destined for Northern Ireland, was found in Slovenia.

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Officers in the Bosnian Serb army are offering armaments, including heavy weapons such as helicopters, for sale to guerrilla and terrorist groups around the world, according to a documentary by an undercover Spanish team.

Posing as drug traffickers buying arms for a Colombian paramilitary group, the film makers from El Mundo TV were taken round an air base at Banja Luka, in the Bosnian Serb Republic, and shown Gazelle helicopters for sale.

The documentary, the second part of an investigation into arms smuggling from the Bosnian Serb Republic, was broadcast on Spain's Antena 3 channel last night.

Reporters from El Mundo TV were taken into the UN-controlled air base by a Bosnian Serb officer who later negotiated the sale of two helicopters for $2m (£1.4m) each.

The documentary team was told by Veljko Borovina, the arms dealer who sent them to Banja Luka, that military instructors could be sent to Colombia to provide "technical backup".

Borovina, who is wanted by Bosnian Serb authorities in connection with the murder of a police officer, said police in the Bosnian Serb Republic would not stop any arms deals.

"They do what we say. We are the strongest people around here," he said.

He claimed that his arms smuggling gang had the backing of the former Bosnian Serb president, Radovan Karadzic, and the former Bosnian Serb commander, General Ratko Mladic. Both would be there to help "if anything goes wrong". The two men are wanted by the war crimes tribunal in the Hague.

Borovina suggested that much of the arms and drugs trade being run from the Bosnian Serb Republic was being handled by Americans. He did not say whether he was referring to US military personnel serving in the SFOR peace force in Bosnia.

He suggested that his clients find Spanish military personnel "who could carry the goods in their trucks to the port". The Spanish army is also present in SFOR.

He added: "The Americans are the ones who distribute most of the arms and drugs in this territory, so it would be better if they did not know and try to get in the way."

UN authorities in Bosnia admitted yesterday that the allegations made by El Mundo TV were serious but disagreed about whose job it would be to investigate.

"Any allegations of local police involved in arms smuggling would be viewed very seriously," said Kate Frieson, a spokeswoman for the UN mission in Bosnia Herzegovina in Sarajevo which is responsible for advising and monitoring local police.

But she said the involvement of Bosnian Serb army personnel would have to be investigated by SFOR.

An SFOR spokesman agreed that the force was in charge of controlling Bosnian Serb army installations and held inventories of the weapons there. But he said arms smuggling was a police matter.

UN sources in Banja Luka said the arms traffickers would have had trouble removing two helicopters, as local air space was controlled by SFOR and an inventory had been made of Bosnian Serb armaments.

Borovina had already agreed to sell the supposed drug traffickers Kalashnikov rifles, M-84 machine guns, pistols, explosives and grenades for £1.5m. He boasted of a previous arms deal carried out by associates, also related to Karadzic, with the Real IRA.

Borovina suggested that arms could be supplied from Belgrade, but if the arms were intended for the Basque separatist group Eta rather than the Colombian paramilitaries, they would have to come from the Bosnian Serb Republic. This, he implied, would prevent future problems between Madrid and Belgrade.

He asked for half the payment in cocaine, saying that the Bosnian Serb mafias wanted to move in on the drugs trade.