BELGRADE, Serbia-Montenegro (AP) – With the death of Slobodan Milosevic, the UN war crimes tribunal’s attention turned to his top wartime henchmen, Gen Ratko Mladic and Radovan Karadzic.

Former Bosnian Serb leader Karadzic and his military commander, Mladic, have been on the run since the Bosnian war ended in 1995 – frustrating and almost mocking those who want them captured and tried.

Chief UN war crimes prosecutor Carla Del Ponte said Milosevic’s death made “more urgent than ever” the arrest and extradition of Karadzic and Mladic.

But Milosevic’s death in his jail cell has also made him a martyr for his supporters in Serbia – bringing into question the Belgrade government’s ability to cooperate with the war crimes tribunal in The Hague, Netherlands.

Serbian ultranationalists, hoping to take power in an election that could be held as early as the end of the year, doubt that Serbia’s current leaders can now afford to make a “political mistake” by extraditing Mladic and Karadzic to The Hague.

“Who will now dare extradite any Serb to The Hague?” asked Radical party leader Tomislav Nikolic. “Except for some crazy politicians, who will dare cooperate with The Hague now?”

Mladic and Karadzic, who top the U.N. tribunal’s wanted list, stand accused of numerous war crimes, including genocide in the 1995 slaughter of up to 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys in the UN-protected enclave of Srebrenica, the worst massacre of civilians in Europe since World War II.