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Top Serbian War Crimes Suspect Caught after 15 Years
PARIS (NY Times) — Ratko Mladic, the former Bosnian Serb general accused of war crimes including masterminding the massacre of some 8,000 Muslim men and boys at Srebrenica in 1995, has been captured in Serbia after more than 15 years as one of the world’s most wanted fugitives.
Serbian news reports said that Ratko Mladic had been living under the name of Milorad Komadic and that he was captured in the small farming town of Lazarevo in Vojvodina, the Serbian province north of Belgrade, after authorities received a tip that the man known as Komadic resembled Mr. Mladic and had identification documents with that name.
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Ratko Mladic arrested, Serbian president confirms
Police in Serbia have arrested Ratko Mladic, the Bosnian Serb military leader wanted by the United Nations for war crimes committed during the Bosnian war, including the Srebrenica massacre.
The detention of Mladic — who had let it be known that he would rather kill himself than be arrested — was confirmed by Serbian president, Boris Tadic.
“On behalf of the Republic of Serbia I can announce the arrest of Ratko Mladic,” he told reporters.Mladic, who was arrested in Serbia, would be extradited to the United Nations war crimes tribunal [in The Hague], he said. He did not specify when, but said “an extradition process is under way”. “We ended a difficult period of our history and removed the stain from the face of the members of our nation wherever they live.”
Mladic has already been indicted by the international criminal tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) for alleged genocide and other war crimes committed during the Bosnian war.
UN International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in The Hague
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."
