BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA: Sarajevo residents welcome arrest of suspected war criminal Ratko Mladic as he prepares to face extradition proceedings

Record ID: 862784

  • Title: BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA: Sarajevo residents welcome arrest of suspected war criminal Ratko Mladic as he prepares to face extradition proceedings
  • Date: 28th May 2011
  • Summary: CLOSE OF NEWSPAPER
  • Embargoed: 12th June 2011 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bosnia and Herzegovina
  • City:
  • Country: Bosnia and Herzegovina
  • Topics: International Relations
  • Reuters ID: LVAAZ9M9EAEMD1MD1SJ5NK2LSJNY
  • Aspect Ratio:
  • Story Text: The response of Sarajevo residents to the arrest of Bosnian Serb wartime general Ratko Mladic on Friday (May 27) was mainly one of relief.
    Mladic will face trial on genocide charges in The Hague following his arrest in Serbia after 15 years at large, with European officials expecting his extradition within 10 days.
    The arrest on Thursday (May 26) of Mladic, the last of the three men accused of instigating ethnic cleansing during the 1992-95 war in Bosnia, removed a major obstacle to the once pariah state of Serbia becoming a candidate for European Union (EU) membership.
    Fifty-year old Sanja Dzubo was seriously injured when Mladic's forces shelled her neighbourhood of Velesici in 1992 and spent five months in a hospital. She welcomed his arrest but said that no sentence Mladic could receive would adequately compensate for the Bosnian people's suffering.
    "When Mladic in 1992 shelled Velesici he hit my house here in Trampa street. I was seriously wounded and spent five months in hospital, but let's not talk about it. I think that finally all those victims and their families will sense some relief, although there is no way to bring back those who were so brutally murdered. Let's finally see him in the Hague to face his sentence, although it can never be adequate to what he did to the Bosnian people," Dzubo said .
    Another resident, Mujo Trako, said it was important for Mladic to face justice.
    "Justice is slow but reachable and let everyone responsible be brought to justice. Regardless of who committed the crimes and whose crimes were bigger, let everyone be brought to justice," he said.
    More than 10,000 people were believed to have been killed, 1,600 of them children, during the 1992-95 siege of Sarajevo.
    Mladic is alleged to have given direct orders for the 44-month shelling of Sarajevo from mountains above the city, which was besieged by the Bosnian Serb forces and left without food, water and electricity.
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