A JUDGE ruled yesterday that Bosnian Serb general Ratko Mladic, the alleged mastermind of the Srebrenica massacre and other atrocities, was fit to face international justice at a war crimes court.

The Yugoslav war crimes tribunal is fully equipped to deal with any health issues suffered by genocide suspect Ratko Mladic when he is extradited to stand trial in The Hague, a spokeswoman said.

UN judges jailed Serb ex-police general Vlastimir Djordjevic for 27 years yesterday for his role in a plot to “change the ethnic balance in Kosovo” by terrorising the Albanian population.

NOTING the inaccuracies in Steven King’s column on Radovan Karadzic and the Yugoslavian wars of the 1990s (October 28), I feel compelled to outline a few historical facts.

ONE of the biggest and most keenly awaited trials of the past half century opened on Monday but without the benefit of the defendant. The infamous Radovan Karadzic, the Bosnian Serbs’ political leader during the Bosnian war of 1992-’95 which left at least 100,000 dead, refused to attend because he said he needs more time to prepare his defence.

BOSNIAN Serb wartime leader Radovan Karadzic announced yesterday he will boycott the start of his genocide trial next week complaining he has not been given enough time to prepare.

MUSLIM victims of the Bosnian war have voiced outrage at the decision to grant early release to a Bosnian Serb ex-president convicted of crimes against humanity.

RADOVAN Karadzic, who led Bosnian Serbs into a 1992-1995 war that killed 100,000 people, says his conscience is clear and he does not regret his role for which he is awaiting trial on genocide charges.

A mass grave believed to contain dozens of victims of the 1995 Srebrenica massacre has been discovered in eastern Bosnia, officials said.

GENERAL Ratko Mladic, now the Hague’s other most wanted man, gave up information leading to the capture and arrest of ally Radovan Karadzic, it was reported yesterday.

“Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic, individually and in concert with others, planned, instigated, ordered or otherwise aided and abetted in the planning, preparation or execution of unlawful attacks against the civilian population and individual civilians with weapons such as mortars, rockets and artillery... They are criminally responsible for the unlawful confinement, murder, rape, sexual assault, torture, beating, robbery and inhumane treatment of civilians.”

THE UN war crimes tribunal for the former Yugoslavia yesterday sentenced former Bosnian Serb general Dragomir Milosevic to 33 years’ imprisonment for the shelling of Sarajevo during the Bosnian war.

The International Court of Human Rights (ICHR) is the focus of a major summer school starting today.

IN the coming months, a fundamental decision will be made that will challenge the capacity of the international community, particularly Europe, for conflict resolution.

The United Nations’ highest court will today rule whether Serbia is guilty of genocide for the killing, torture, rape and expulsion of Bosnian Muslims – the first time an entire nation is being held to judicial account for the ultimate crime.

EU FOREIGN ministers raised the bar on the former Yugoslavia states and Albania joining the bloc over the weekend, but reaffirmed that the ultimate goal was membership.

Three gunmen in a speeding car killed a defence lawyer in the Saddam Hussein trial and wounded another today in Western Baghdad.

Former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic’s defence case against war crimes charges has been postponed until August 31 because of his ill health, the United Nations tribunal has said.

A Serbian military commander indicted for war crimes has been handed over to the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague.

The Yugoslav war crimes tribunal is to appoint a lawyer to assist Slobodan Milosevic.

The United Nations war crimes tribunal was today delivering a verdict in the genocide trial of a Bosnian Serb general charged with Europe’s worst civilian massacre since the Holocaust.

Slobodan Milosevic is to ask a Dutch court to declare that his hand over to the UN war crimes tribunal and his continued detention are illegal.