Ratko Mladic appears in court in Belgrade
Gen Mladic ‘fit to be extradited’
Belgrade doctors are to decide whether Ratko Mladic is fit to resume attending a hearing aimed at extraditing him to the war crimes tribunal in The Hague.
The hearing against the 69-year-old former Bosnian Serb army chief was halted when his lawyer said he was in “poor physical state”.
Gen Mladic – who was arrested on Thursday after 16 years on the run – faces genocide charges over the 1992-95 Bosnian war.
The extradition could take a week.
Gen Mladic was indicted by the UN war crimes tribunal in The Hague in 1995 for genocide over the killings about 7,500 Bosnian Muslim men and boys 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.
Following the arrest of former Bosnian Serb political leader Radovan Karadzic in 2008, Gen Mladic became the most prominent Bosnian war crimes suspect at large.
The arrest was hailed internationally.
The extradition hearing at a Belgrade court was abruptly stopped on Thursday, when Gen Mladic’s lawyer, Milos Saljic, said his client was unable to communicate.
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.
Mr Saljic said Gen Mladic needed medical care and “should not be moved in such a state”.
Reports in Serbian media suggested that one of Gen Mladic’s arms was paralysed, which was probably the result of a stroke.
Mr Saljic said: “He is aware that he is under arrest, he knows where he is, and he said he does not recognise The Hague tribunal.”
War crimes prosecutor Bruno Vekaric acknowledged that Gen Mladic was taking a lot of medicine, but added that he “responds very rationally to everything that is going on”.
Court officials believe he will fight the extradition.
Serbia had been under intense international pressure to arrest Gen Mladic and send him to the UN International Criminal Tribunal to the former Yugoslavia in The Hague.
Gen Mladic had reportedly been under surveillance for the past two weeks After the arrest, the government banned public gatherings in an effort to prevent any pro-Mladic demonstrations.
But hundreds of ultra-nationalists clashed with police in the northern city of Novi Sad, and there was a smaller demonstration involving several dozen protesters in the centre of Belgrade.
President Boris Tadic’s government is now keen for a speedy extradition of Gen Mladic, whom Serb nationalists still regard as a hero, the BBC’s Mark Lowen in Belgrade reports.
On Thursday, Serbian TV showed footage of the former general wearing a baseball cap and walking slowly as he appeared in court in Belgrade.
President Tadic said Gen Mladic’s arrest had 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.
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.”
Mladic’s lawyer Milos Saljic describes his client’s condition
Gen Mladic was seized in the province of Vojvodina in the early hours of Thursday.
He had two guns with him, but put up no resistance, officials said.
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 single-storey house was owned by a relative of Gen Mladic and had been under surveillance for the past two weeks, one of the sources added.
Local resident Zora Prodariovic told the BBC: “I’m really surprised. My mother lives four doors down from here and I’ve never seen him.”
Reports that Gen Mladic had been living under the assumed name Milorad Komodic have been denied by Serbian Interior Minister Ivica Dacic.
Serbian media say he was not in disguise – unlike Mr Karadzic, who had a long beard and a ponytail when he was captured in Belgrade three years ago.
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.
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