Mladic left nation torn apart, says prosecutor

FORMER Bosnian Serb military commander Radtko Mladic must be held to account for using his power to commit atrocities that tore a nation apart, a UN war crimes prosecutor said.

Mladic, who was arrested in Serbia last Thursday and extradited after 16 years on the run, will face genocide charges at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague tomorrow.

“Mladic was the highest-ranking Bosnian Serb military leader during the wars in Bosnia,” said chief prosecutor Serge Brammertz.

Mladic is charged with responsibility for the role that he and his military forces played in the violent criminal campaigns that swept across Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Brammerz added: “His crimes left communities broken and a nation torn apart. Sixteen years is a long time to wait for justice. It is a long time to know that someone responsible for this trauma is walking free. Now he must answer to these serious international crimes.”

The 69-year-old was flown to the Netherlands on Tuesday but has not yet entered a plea.

Mladic was indicted by the tribunal 16 years ago over the 43-month siege of the Bosnian capital Sarajevo and the massacre of 8,000 Muslim men and boys in the town of Srebrenica, close to the border with Serbia, during the 1992-95 Bosnian war.

The fugitive was arrested at a farmhouse in northern Serbia belonging to a cousin, triggering protests by Serb nationalists in Serbia and Bosnia.

His swift extradition will smooth Serbia’s progress towards candidacy for European Union membership while serving as a warning to others indicted on similar charges, such as Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi and Sudan’s Omar Al Bashir.

Mr Brammertz has asked Serbia to explain how Mladic managed to elude arrest in recent years.

“We want to verify who, over the past five years, have been instrumental in helping Mladic to stay in hiding and we want them to be accountable,” he said.

“His arrest confirms that no one can count on impunity for war crimes,” Mr Brammertz said, urging Serbia to track down Goran Hadzic, the last remaining ethnic Serb fugitive wanted by the UN tribunal.

In a poll on May 15, before the arrest, 51% of Serbians said they were against extraditing Mladic, while 34 percent said they were in favour of his arrest.

Reuters