SALON

Thursday, May 26, 2011 11:17 AM UTC

General Ratko Mladic arrested in Serbia

Europe's top war crimes fugitive has been on the run since 1995, when he was indicted by the U.N. for genocide

By

Topics: Crime, European Union,

General Ratko Mladic arrested in SerbiaFILE In this June 28, 1996 file photo Bosnian Serb military commander General Ratko Mladic, center, smiles as he visits troops to mark both the fourth anniversary of the founding of his Bosnian Serb army and St. Vitus' Day, the anniversary of the Serb defeat by the Turks at Kosovo in 1389, near the village of Han Pijesak, some 40 miles east of Sarajevo. Belgrade media reports Thursday May 26, 2011 that a man suspected to be Europe's most wanted war crimes fugitive Ratko Mladic has been arrested in Serbia. Serbia state TV said a man who identified himself as Milorad Komadic when he was arrested Thursday is the wartime Bosnian Serb army commander. It gave no other details. (AP Photo)(Credit: AP)

Gen. Ratko Mladic, Europe’s most wanted war crimes fugitive, has been arrested in Serbia, the country’s president said Thursday.

Mladic has been on the run since 1995 when he was indicted by the U.N. war crimes tribunal in The Hague, Netherlands, for genocide in the slaughter of some 8,000 Bosnian Muslims in Srebrenica and other crimes committed by his troops during Bosnia’s 1992-95 war.

“On behalf of the Republic of Serbia we announce that Ratko Mladic has been arrested,” Boris Tadic told reporters. He said the arest was made by the Serbian Security Intelligence Agency.

Mladic will be extradited to the U.N. war crimes tribunal, he said. He did not specify when, but said “an extradition process is under way.”

“We ended a difficult period of our history and removed the stain from the face of the members of our nation wherever they live,” he said.

Serbia has been under intense pressure to make the arrest, with the chief U.N. war crimes prosecutor, Serge Brammertz, complaining earlier this month that authorities were not doing enough to capture him and other war crimes fugitives.

Brammertz was scheduled to report next month to the U.N. Security Council about the Balkan country’s efforts.

Brammertz’s regular reports on Serbia’s compliance are crucial for the Balkan country’s efforts to become an European Union member candidate. The EU has conditioned Serbia’s membership bid on the arrest.

Prosecutors have said they believed he was hiding in Serbia under the protection of hardliners who consider him a hero. Mladic was last seen in Belgrade in 2006.

Croatian media, which first broke the story, said police there got confirmation from their Serbian colleagues that DNA analysis confirmed Mladic’s identity. Belgrade’s B92 radio said Mladic was arrested Thursday in a village close to the northern Serbian town of Zrenjanin.

In Brussels, NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen hailed the arrest, saying Thursday that almost 16 years since Mladic’s indictment for genocide “his arrest finally offers a chance for justice to be done.”

Tens of thousands of NATO troops were deployed to Bosnia in 1995 to safeguard a U.S.-sponsored peace agreement between that nations’ warring factions. They have since been withdrawn abd replaced by a much smaller European Union force.

———-

Associated Press writer Slobodan Lekic contributed to this story from Brussels.

More Dusan Stojanovic.

Next Article

Related Stories

More Related Stories

Featured Slide Shows

The week in 10 pics

close X
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11
  • Lisa Montgomery embraces her nephew Thursday after a tornado tore apart her home in Cleburne, Texas. The twister killed six people and destroyed entire swaths of the North Texas town.
    Credit: AP/LM Otero

  • Jack McMahon, the defense attorney for abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell, speaks outside the Criminal Justice Center in Philadelphia Tuesday. His client was convicted of killing three babies in his clinic, and will serve multiple life sentences.
    Credit: AP/Matt Rourke

  • A photo taken Monday captures Vice President Joe Biden's response to a Milwaukee second-grader's innovative proposal to end America's epidemic of gun violence. This guy!
    Credit: AP/Jenny Aicher

  • Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., flanked by a grouper-eyed Michele Bachmann, addresses the IRS' admission that it targeted Tea Party groups in advance of the 2012 election. In an op-ed for CNN Thursday, the Kentucky senator slammed the president for his faux outrage.
    Credit: AP/Molly Riley

  • Ousted IRS chief Steven Miller is sworn in on Capitol Hill Friday. Miller testified before the House Ways and Means Committee on the extra scrutiny the agency gave conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status.
    Credit: AP/J. Scott Applewhite

  • Attorney General Eric Holder pauses as he testifies on Capitol Hill before the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday. Holder is under fire, among other things, for the Justice Department's gathering of phone records at the Associated Press.
    Credit: AP/Carolyn Kaster

  • O.J. Simpson sits during an evidentiary hearing at Clark County District Court in Las Vegas, Nev., Thursday. Simpson, who is currently serving a nine-to-33-year sentence in state prison for armed robbery and kidnapping, is using a writ of habeas corpus to seek a new trial.
    Credit: AP/Las Vegas Review-Journal/Jeff Scheid

  • Major Tom to ground control: On Sunday astronaut Chris Hadfield recorded the first music video from space, a cover of David Bowie's "Space Oddity."
    Credit: AP/NASA/Chris Hadfield

  • When it rains it pours. President Barack Obama speaks during a news conference Thursday with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, inexplicably inspiring an #umbrellagate Twitter meme.
    Credit: AP/Jacquelyn Martin

  • A smoke plume rises high above a road block at the intersection of County A and Ross Road east of Solon Springs, Wis., Tuesday. No injuries were reported, but the the wildfire caused evacuations across northwestern Wisconsin.
    Credit: AP/The Duluth News-Tribune/Clint Austin

  • Recent Slide Shows

  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11

Related Videos

Comments

 14 Comments

Comment Preview

Your name will appear as username

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href=""> <b> <em> <strong> <i> <blockquote>

follow salon

Most Read

Popular on Reddit

links from salon.com

vote
Oklahoma senator: Tornado aid “totally different” from Sandy aid
2737 points2738 points | 1281 comments
vote
Anyone Regret Slashing National Weather Service Budget Now?: With GOP-backed cuts to forecasting agency, experts warn future storms will go undetected and more lives lost
880 points881 points | 429 comments
vote
Oklahoma senator wants to offset tornado aid with other cuts
129 points130 points | 41 comments
vote
Horrifying new trend: Posting rapes to Facebook " In Chicago this weekend, prosecutors announced three teenaged boys will tried as adults for aggravated criminal sexual assault after allegedly raping a 12-year-old girl — and posting a video of the attack on Facebook."
22 points23 points | 13 comments
vote
Recent scandals are Whitewater redux, not Watergate
14 points15 points | 2 comments

From Around the Web

Presented by Scribol
listener_new_rect The Listener: So long, Sookie Stackhouse

Recommendations