VARIOUS FILE: Serbian police arrest a man suspected to be the wanted war crimes suspect Ratko Mladic

Record ID: 695079

  • Title: VARIOUS FILE: Serbian police arrest a man suspected to be the wanted war crimes suspect Ratko Mladic
  • Date: 27th May 2011
  • Summary: NEAR SREBRENICA, BOSNIA HERZEGOVINA (FILE - APRIL 1996) (REUTERS) INVESTIGATORS MARKING MASS GRAVES CLOSE OF HUMAN SKULL INVESTIGATORS DIGGING
  • Embargoed: 11th June 2011 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Netherlands, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia
  • City:
  • Country: Netherlands
  • Topics: Crime / Law Enforcement
  • Reuters ID: LVA1U41CJV2MM4FBRQ2ZIJ45NPV1
  • Story Text: Serbian police have arrested a man suspected to be the wanted war crimes suspect Ratko Mladic, an Interior Ministry official said on Thursday (May 26).
    "He has some physical features of Mladic. We are analysing his DNA now," the official said on condition of anonymity. The man was arrested in Serbia on an anonymous tip, he said.
    Serbia must arrest Mladic, sought by the U.N. war crimes tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) for genocide during the 1992-1995 Bosnian war, if it wants to join the European Union.
    Former Bosnian Serb Army Commander General Ratko Mladic was born in eastern Bosnia Herzegovina in March 1943. His father, a communist partisan, was killed fighting against German and Croatian fascists when Mladic was two. He embarked on a military career in his early twenties culminating in the command of Bosnian Serb forces following an army purge instigated by Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic.
    During the 1992-95 Bosnian war, Mladic oversaw the three-and-a-half year siege of Sarajevo and his forces gained control of over 70 percent of Bosnian territory.
    His relations with his political patron, former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic, were often said to be stormy. The two men were an effective double act in their dealings with United Nations and international mediators. While Karadzic promised co-operation, Mladic's army continued to ignore agreements. Karadzic attempted to dismiss Mladic in August 1995 but was forced to back down when Mladic's generals pledged their loyalty to him.
    In July 1995 the United Nations war crimes tribunal indicted Mladic and Karadzic for genocide during the siege of Sarajevo. In the following November they were both charged with orchestrating the mass slaughter of up to 8,000 Muslim civilians after the fall of the Srebrenica enclave. Mladic was seen on several occasions in or outside Srebrenica when the massacres took place.
    Mladic's refusal to stop shelling Sarajevo led to NATO launching air and artillery strikes which eventually culminated in the signing of the Dayton Peace Accords in December 1995. Under the accords Bosnian Serbs settled for the setting up of a Serb republic within sovereign Bosnia, occupying 49 percent of the country.
    Mladic was barred from any role in military or public life but he remained in charge of the army until he was reluctantly removed by Karadzic's successor Biljana Plavsic in November 1996.
    Following his dismissal Mladic went into hiding and, in spite of numerous unconfirmed sightings, evaded several attempts by NATO and EU peace force troops to capture him.
    Mladic's former ally Slobodan Milosevic was handed over to the UN war crimes tribunal in the Hague by reformist ministers in the Yugoslav government in June 2001 and, after eleven years on the run, Radovan Karadzic was arrested in Belgrade in July 2008 where he lived posing as a doctor of alternative medicine.
    Mladic is the last remaining high-profile fugitive from the Bosnian war and his arrest is a key condition for Serbia's progress towards European Union membership. Serbian officials have said he should be arrested and handed over to the UN war crimes tribunal this year.
  • Copyright Holder: FILE REUTERS (CAN SELL)
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