In an interview with the Tribune, Del Ponte criticised the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) for its failure to find top war crimes fugitives Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic more than nine years since the end of the war.

"I am very disappointed with the action of NATO in relation to the arrest of war criminals. It's been a year and a half that SFOR (the NATO-led mission in Bosnia) has not arrested anyone despite the information we have given them," she said.

"I have new hope with this European force."

She repeated her claims, oft-denied by Serb authorities in the former Yugoslavia, that former Bosnian Serb leader Karadzic is hiding in Serb-run parts of Bosnia and that his wartime military chief, Mladic, is in the neighbouring republic of Serbia.

Both men have been indicted by the UN court at The Hague with crimes including genocide for their roles in Bosnia's 1992-1995 conflict.

Del Ponte said Mladic was being protected by elements of the Serbian military in Belgrade, an allegation she has made repeatedly in the past.

"He is not hiding in a hole like Saddam Hussein but in military apartments or compounds," she was quoted as saying.

"No one is looking for him. There is no will to arrest him."

She again pointed the finger at Serbian Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica as the main obstacle to the arrest of the fugitives. Some 20 war crimes indictees are believed to be on the run in Serbia, including four top Serbian generals.

Del Ponte is expected to meet the EU mission commander, British General David Leakey, in Bosnia later Thursday.

All rights reserved. � 2005 Agence France-Presse. Sections of the information displayed on this page (dispatches, photographs, logos) are protected by intellectual property rights owned by Agence France-Presse. As a consequence, you may not copy, reproduce, modify, transmit, publish, display or in any way commercially exploit any of the content of this section without the prior written consent of Agence France-Presse.