Ratko Mladic appeared in a Belgrade court in a baseball cap, looking frail Captured Mladic in Serbian court
Ratko Mladic appeared in a Belgrade court in a baseball cap, looking frail Ratko Mladic is appearing in a Serbian court within hours of his arrest in the north of the country after 16 years on the run.
Authorities are seeking to extradite the former Bosnian Serb army chief to the war crimes tribunal in The Hague.
Officials say he is likely to appeal against his extradition, and the process could take up to seven days.
He faces genocide charges over the killing of about 7,500 Bosnian Muslim men and boys at Srebrenica in 1995.
Following the arrest of Radovan Karadzic in 2008, Gen Mladic became the most prominent Bosnian war crimes suspect at large.
Serbia had been under intense international pressure to arrest him and send him to the UN International Criminal Tribunal to the former Yugoslavia in The Hague.
Serbian TV showed footage of Mr Mladic wearing a baseball cap and walking slowly as he appeared in court in Belgrade.
Analysis
It is hard to overstate the importance of this arrest here in Serbia. Many people feel the destiny of their country was held hostage by Ratko Mladic. Their hopes of joining the EU were ruled out by Brussels while Mladic was at large.
I asked President Tadic if it was a coincidence that he was arrested while the EU was considering Serbia’s bid to join the bloc. He said the country had never calculated its search for Mladic – it was always determined to catch him.
There is still an ultra-nationalist fringe here who see Mladic as a hero – they say he only ever defended Serb interests. But the new, emerging generation in Serbia seem to be tired of the past and its wars – they want to leave that behind and move forward to the future.
President Boris Tadic said his arrest on Thursday brought Serbia and the region closer to reconciliation, and opened the doors to European Union membership.
Mr Tadic rejected criticism that Serbia had been reluctant to seize Gen Mladic.
“We have been co-operating with the Hague tribunal fully from the beginning of the mandate of this government,” he said.
A spokeswoman for families of Srebrenica victims, Hajra Catic, told AFP news agency: “After 16 years of waiting, for us, the victims’ families, this is a relief.”
Gen Mladic, 69, was seized in the province of Vojvodina in the early hours of Thursday, Serbian Justice Minister Slobodan Homan told the BBC.
Serbian security sources told AFP news agency that three special units had descended on a house in the village of Lazarevo, about 80km (50 miles) north of Belgrade.
The house was owned by a relative of Gen Mladic and had been under surveillance for the past two weeks, one of the sources added.
Footage said to show Ratko Mladic’s home for the last 10 years has emerged
Gen Mladic was reportedly using the assumed name Milorad Komodic.
Serbian media say did not resist arrest, and was not in disguise – unlike Mr Karadzic, who had a long beard and a ponytail when he was captured in Belgrade three years ago.
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 alleged crimes.
Having lived freely in the Serbian capital, Belgrade, he disappeared after the arrest of former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic in 2001.
In a message from his UN cell in the Hague, Mr Karadzic said he was sorry Gen Mladic has been arrested.
The wartime Bosnian Serb leader added that he wanted to work with him “to bring out the truth” about the Bosnian war, in a message relayed to the Associated Press news agency by his lawyer.
The arrest was hailed internationally.
UN war crimes chief prosecutor Serge Brammertz thanked the Serbian authorities for “meeting their obligations towards the tribunal and towards justice”.
US President Barack Obama said the US looked forward to an “expeditious transfer to The Hague”.
UK Foreign Secretary William Hague called the arrest a “historic moment”.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy said it was “a very courageous decision by the Serbian presidency”.
Footage said to show Ratko Mladic’s home for the last 10 years has emerged
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