Ratko Mladic arrested: Bosnia war crimes suspect held

wolfamongwolveswolfamongwolves Posts: 2,414
edited May 2011 in A Moving Train
BBC 26 May 2011 Last updated at 11:53 GMT
Live blog:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-13559963


Ratko Mladic, wanted by UN prosecutors for war crimes during the Bosnian civil war, has been arrested in Serbia after a decade in hiding.

Serbian President Boris Tadic confirmed the arrest of the former Bosnian Serb army chief at a news conference.

Gen Mladic is accused of a key role in the massacre of at least 7,500 men and boys at Srebrenica in 1995.

He was the most prominent Bosnian war crimes suspect at large since the arrest of Radovan Karadzic in 2008.

President Tadic said work was under way to extradite Gen Mladic to the international war crimes tribunal in The Hague.

The detention, he said, had closed one chapter in Serbian history, bringing the country and the region closer to reconciliation.

It had also opened the doors to membership of the European Union, he added.

Gen Mladic was said by Serbian media to have been arrested in Vojvodina, a northern province of Serbia, in the early hours of Thursday morning. President Tadic would only confirm he had been arrested "on Serbian soil".

Gen Mladic was indicted by the UN war crimes tribunal in The Hague in 1995 for genocide over the killings that July at Srebrenica - the worst single atrocity in Europe since World War II - and other crimes.

Having lived freely in the Serbian capital, Belgrade, he disappeared after the arrest of former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic in 2001.

Speculation mounted that Gen Mladic would soon be arrested when Mr Karadzic was captured in Belgrade in July 2008.

Just before news of Thursday's arrest, UN war crimes chief prosecutor Serge Brammertz accused Serbia of failing to do enough to find Gen Mladic.

"The capture is the biggest obligation of Serbia," he said in a report sent to the UN Security Council.

"Until now efforts by Serbia to detain fugitives have not been sufficient."
93: Slane
96: Cork, Dublin
00: Dublin
06: London, Dublin
07: London, Copenhagen, Nijmegen
09: Manchester, London
10: Dublin, Belfast, London & Berlin
11: San José
12: Isle of Wight, Copenhagen, Ed in Manchester & London x2
Post edited by Unknown User on

Comments

  • Jason PJason P Posts: 19,158
    It sounds like this guy was politically protected and lived a free life until now.
    Be Excellent To Each Other
    Party On, Dudes!
  • wolfamongwolveswolfamongwolves Posts: 2,414
    Jason P wrote:
    It sounds like this guy was politically protected and lived a free life until now.

    Quite possible.

    1536: The Serbian Radical Party are not alone in their outrage about the arrest. For Bosnian Serb war veterans in the city of Banja Luka, Mladic is "a symbol of the Serb people's fight for the creation of the Serb Republic and the survival of Serbs in this region", according to one veterans' leader. Another warns Serbian President Tadic that "the arrest of Mladic will not be forgiven", the Sarajevo-based Fena news agency reports in comments picked up by our colleagues over at BBC Monitoring.
    93: Slane
    96: Cork, Dublin
    00: Dublin
    06: London, Dublin
    07: London, Copenhagen, Nijmegen
    09: Manchester, London
    10: Dublin, Belfast, London & Berlin
    11: San José
    12: Isle of Wight, Copenhagen, Ed in Manchester & London x2
  • The world is a very funny place. One country builds walls and takes forays into places and it is called good in most of the world powers eyes. This guy and his country didn't like the fact they were being told that imigrants were going to be given some of their land and they are bad. Sounds like the same fish from the same sea to me. Just went about in the wrong way. Apparently there are different rules and different definitions of the word war. And depending on who likes it, it is either the right way or the wrong way.

    The poison from the poison stream caught up to you ELEVEN years ago and you floated out of here. Sept. 14, 08

  • unsungunsung I stopped by on March 7 2024. First time in many years, had to update payment info. Hope all is well. Politicians suck. Bye. Posts: 9,487
  • ByrnzieByrnzie Posts: 21,037
    unsung wrote:

    Actually, it looks like wolfamongwolves posted his thread before i posted mine. I didn't see this one before.
  • wolfamongwolveswolfamongwolves Posts: 2,414
    The world is a very funny place. One country builds walls and takes forays into places and it is called good in most of the world powers eyes. This guy and his country didn't like the fact they were being told that imigrants were going to be given some of their land and they are bad. Sounds like the same fish from the same sea to me. Just went about in the wrong way. Apparently there are different rules and different definitions of the word war. And depending on who likes it, it is either the right way or the wrong way.

    Hm... I don't think it's so much that he didn't like "immigrants"that makes him "bad" in most people's eyes.

    I think it's got a little more to do with the 7,500 innocent people who were murdered.
    93: Slane
    96: Cork, Dublin
    00: Dublin
    06: London, Dublin
    07: London, Copenhagen, Nijmegen
    09: Manchester, London
    10: Dublin, Belfast, London & Berlin
    11: San José
    12: Isle of Wight, Copenhagen, Ed in Manchester & London x2
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