Lawyer to file new 'Mladic dead' motion

The lawyer for the family of Europe’s top war crimes fugitive, Ratko Mladic, is to file a new motion to declare him officially dead, after a previous bid was rejected for procedural reasons.

Milos Saljic said he will submit the motion once he completes the documentation sought by the court.

He said he is refiling because the court cited procedural problems, without ruling on the motion itself.

The wartime Bosnian Serb army commander is sought by a UN tribunal on genocide charges for orchestrating the massacre of 8,000 Muslims in Srebrenica in 1995 and other war crimes.

His family has argued that he was sick and has not appeared in public since he went into hiding in 2003. They say he could not have survived this long without medical care.