War Crimes Fugitive Mladic Arrested in Serbia

By Dusan Stojanovic, Associated Press

26 May 11

en. Ratko Mladic, the brutal Bosnian Serb general suspected of leading the bloody massacre of 8,000 Muslim men and boys, was arrested Thursday in Serbia after years in hiding, the country's president said.

The arrest 16 years after Mladic was indicted by the UN war crimes tribunal for genocide, could be a jolt for Serbia's lagging efforts to join the European Union. The country has been under intense pressure from the international community to catch Europe's most wanted war crimes suspect and the EU has insisted on his arrest as a condition for its membership bid.

Mladic is charged in worst massacre in Europe since World War II and in and other crimes committed during Bosnia's 1992-95 war. The general personally led his troops in the bloody Serb onslaught against the UN-protected Srebrenica enclave in Bosnia, cementing his reputation as a cold and ruthless killer.

Just hours before the massacre, Mladic handed out candy to Muslim children in the town's square, assuring them everything would be fine and patting one child on the head. Then the shootings began and the bodies of the victims were bulldozed into mass graves.

"We ended a difficult period of our history and removed the stain from the face of the members of our nation wherever they live," President Boris Tadic told reporters. He said the arrest was made by the Serbian Security Intelligence Agency.

Mladic will be extradited to the war crimes tribunal in The Hague, Netherlands, he said. He did not specify when, but said "an extradition process is under way."

In Bosnia, the head of a group of of victims' family members formed to keep the pressure on war crimes investigators to find the bodies and to arrest the perpetrators, welcomed the arrest.

But, added Munira Subasic, "I'm sorry for all the victims who are dead and cannot see this day."

Serbia has been under intense scrutiny over Mladic, with the chief UN war crimes prosecutor, Serge Brammertz, complaining earlier this month that authorities were not doing enough to capture him and other war crimes fugitives.

Brammertz's regular reports on Serbia's compliance are crucial for the Balkan country's efforts to become an EU member candidate.

With Mladic's arrest, "we have opened the door for the negotiations and membership in the European Union," Tadic said.

Prosecutors have said they believed he was hiding in Serbia under the protection of hardliners who consider him a hero. Belgrade's media said Mladic was arrested Thursday in Lazarevo, a village some 100 kilometers (60 miles) northeast of Belgrade close to the northern Serbian town of Zrenjanin, at the home of relatives.

Belgrade's B-92 radio said Mladic was not in disguise when arrested, unlike wartime Bosnian Serb president Radovan Karadzic who was arrested in Belgrade in 2008 disguised as a New Age guru, with long white hair and a beard.

Serbia's war crimes office said in a statement that the arrest represents "the fulfillment of justice."

"The victims and their families have long waited for this moment," it said in a statement. "Serbia has fulfilled its moral obligation toward the victims and their families."

Croatian media, which first broke the story, said police there got confirmation from their Serbian colleagues that DNA analysis confirmed Mladic's identity.

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 US-sponsored peace agreement between that nations' warring factions. They have since been withdrawn abd replaced by a much smaller European Union force.

Earlier, The United Nations had declared Serb-besieged Srebrenica a protected area for civilians. But the few hundred Dutch Blue Helmets on the ground were left short of credible weaponry or a clear mandate to protect the town.

Srebrenica fell to the Serbs after senior UN commanders dithered on Dutch requests for air strikes and its overwhelmingly Bosnian Muslim residents swarmed the UN military base, seeking refuge. But the peacekeepers allowed the Serbs to take away the townspeople when Mladic said they would not be harmed.

Since the massacre, the bodies of thousands of the victims have been recovered, identified through DNA tests and laid to rest.

Associated Press writer Jovana Gec, Slobodan Lekic in Brussels and Aida Cerkez in Sarajevo contributed to this story.