BELGRADE (Reuters) – Bosnian Serb wartime general Ratko Mladic was arrested in Serbia Thursday after years on the run from international genocide charges, opening the way for the once-pariah state to approach the European mainstream.
Mladic, accused of orchestrating the massacre of 8,000 Muslim men and boys in the town of Srebrenica and a brutal 43-month siege of Sarajevo during Bosnia’s 1992-5 war, was found in a farmhouse owned by a cousin, a police official said.
Horrible tales of genocide have come out of the Bosnian Serb war. In fact, it was those stories and accompanying proof of genocide that prompted the world community to become involve in the on-going hostilities from that Balkan region.
Mladic was using an anagram of his own name and has been shown dancing in public in Serbia. He wasn’t all that hidden. Video footage from the Bosnian war show Mladic at his most malevolent. Hopefully the international war crimes tribunal will find him guilty and deal with him harshly. Many people in Serbia still see Mladic as a hero. Serbia has been blocked from joining the European Union because this war criminal has not been apprehended.
Hopefully, Colonel Morris Davis can keep us updated.
Karma is a bitch, apparently he has suffered mulitple mini strokes. I did the make up for the reporter who broke the first national story about the mass graves, he worked for the Christian Science Monitor. He was on CNBC for an interview. Very nice young man.
Mladic was not the only reason why Serbia has been kept out of the European Union. I believe that the other piece of business to be addressed is Serbian agreement for the official granting of independence to Kosovo.
Mladic is toast. Slam dunk for anyone working on that issue. He had help in evading capture so long. I wonder if those involved in helping him will also be outed and perhaps face charges or whether Mladic himself will be enough and the European Union will sweep the rest of it under the carpet in the interest of moving forward on Serbian membership.
@Wolverine
They should be punished also. Genocide should be dealt with seriously. He stands a good chance, if convicted, of getting the death penalty. (or so I have read)
After posting #2, I found that the Serbian president HAS announced that they will be going after those who helped to hide Mladic. Apparently many were members of his very large extended family scattered all over the Balkan states. They may or may not have been involved in the Bosnia atrocities per se. I also read that some evasion help may have come from Serbian officers who had served under Mladic in Bosnia. That should be very interesting. Mladic would not have been able to commit all those atrocities on his lonesome. Makes me wonder if he might not be alone in the docket.
As far as the death penalty goes, I am not so sure. European Union nations themselves are opposed to the death penalty. I don’t know how the international court might figure into that equation. Might be a question Moe could answer for us. Between Lybia, Syria, Yemen, and Mladic, Moe and his research crew must be working overtime.
Interesting story in The Telegraph out of the UK that the Mladic arrest was a set-up, that negotiations for his surrender had been going on for a year, with European diplomats being kept informed by the Serbian government. The article reports that promises were made to him that his family, wife and child, would not suffer and would be taken care of by the Serbian government if he gave himself up. Reputedly protected by a devoted cadre of bodyguards and ready to commit suicide rather than surrender, he was taken without even a fight, “protected” only by an elderly brother who actually served snacks to the Serbian special forces making the “raid.” Speculation is that Mladic was not hiding in the brother’s home but had gone there only a short time before as part of a planned arrest scenario. It all sounds quite plausible.
Back when Mladic was truly in hiding, it appears from this report that he may have been secluded at times in army and/or police barracks and that the Serbian special forces were not inclined to confront him because of the stories of the armed and loyal bodyguards around him. Do I see a book coming — maybe even a movie?
Make that the house of an “elderly cousin” rather than a brother.