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Police in Serbia have arrested former Serbian military commander Ratko Mladic, the highest-ranking war crimes suspect still at large from the Balkan wars of the 1990s, Serbia's president announced Thursday.
"Today we arrested Ratko Mladic," Serbian President Boris Tadic said in a dramatic and hastily announced news conference in Belgrade.
Mladic was detained in Serbia following an investigation that took about three years, Tadic said. He refused to give more details about the operation.
"All war criminals must face justice," Tadic said.
Mladic, 69, is wanted on charges of genocide, extermination and murder, among others, by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia.
The tribunal accuses him of "direct involvement in the genocide committed after the fall of Srebrenica in July 1995," and the killing of "close to 8,000 men and boys following the fall of this enclave."
The massacre of the Muslim men and boys is thought to be the largest individual slaughter in Europe since the end of World War II.
Mladic remains a hero to some of his soldiers, said David Owen, a former European Union envoy to Yugoslavia, suggesting that his supporters had sheltered him in Serbia.
Serbia -- once a part of multi-ethnic Yugoslavia -- continues to probe "who aided and abetted Mladic... and those people will face justice," Tadic said.
The president said the arrest will help the process of reconciliation throughout the Balkans.
It should also pave the way for Serbia's entry to the European Union.
EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton hailed the arrest as a victory for "the rule of law in Serbia," and praised Tadic and his government for "this courageous action."
She called for the quick transfer of the suspect to the Netherlands for trial.
Tadic declined to say how long the extradition would take, explaining it was not up to him.
Croatian newspaper Jutarnji List was the first to report the arrest of Mladic, saying that police were doing DNA tests on a suspect to determine if he was the notorious former commander.
The 1992-1995 Bosnian war was the longest of the wars spawned by the breakup of Yugoslavia in the early 1990s.
Backed by the government of then-Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic, Bosnian Serb forces seized control of more than half the country and launched a campaign against the Muslim and Croat populations.
Mladic has been on the run since the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina ended in 1995.
His former boss, Radovan Karadzic, was arrested in July 2008 and is now on trial in The Hague. Karadzic, the leader of Serbian-controlled Bosnian territory during the war, was removed from power under the Dayton Peace accords that ended three years of brutal fighting.
He went into hiding and was working in an alternative medicine clinic in Belgrade, right under the noses of authorities, when he was captured.
He had grown a full white beard and long hair.
Karadzic has insisted on defending himself at The Hague. Prosecutors accuse him of deliberately obstructing the trial with delaying tactics, and judges have threatened to impose a defense lawyer on him if he does not cooperate.
Milosevic was toppled in 2000 and put on trial at The Hague. He died in jail in 2006 before the trial came to an end.
Bosnia genocide suspect Ratko Mladic arrested in Serbia - CNN.com
"Today we arrested Ratko Mladic," Serbian President Boris Tadic said in a dramatic and hastily announced news conference in Belgrade.
Mladic was detained in Serbia following an investigation that took about three years, Tadic said. He refused to give more details about the operation.
"All war criminals must face justice," Tadic said.
Mladic, 69, is wanted on charges of genocide, extermination and murder, among others, by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia.
The tribunal accuses him of "direct involvement in the genocide committed after the fall of Srebrenica in July 1995," and the killing of "close to 8,000 men and boys following the fall of this enclave."
The massacre of the Muslim men and boys is thought to be the largest individual slaughter in Europe since the end of World War II.
Mladic remains a hero to some of his soldiers, said David Owen, a former European Union envoy to Yugoslavia, suggesting that his supporters had sheltered him in Serbia.
Serbia -- once a part of multi-ethnic Yugoslavia -- continues to probe "who aided and abetted Mladic... and those people will face justice," Tadic said.
The president said the arrest will help the process of reconciliation throughout the Balkans.
It should also pave the way for Serbia's entry to the European Union.
EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton hailed the arrest as a victory for "the rule of law in Serbia," and praised Tadic and his government for "this courageous action."
She called for the quick transfer of the suspect to the Netherlands for trial.
Tadic declined to say how long the extradition would take, explaining it was not up to him.
Croatian newspaper Jutarnji List was the first to report the arrest of Mladic, saying that police were doing DNA tests on a suspect to determine if he was the notorious former commander.
The 1992-1995 Bosnian war was the longest of the wars spawned by the breakup of Yugoslavia in the early 1990s.
Backed by the government of then-Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic, Bosnian Serb forces seized control of more than half the country and launched a campaign against the Muslim and Croat populations.
Mladic has been on the run since the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina ended in 1995.
His former boss, Radovan Karadzic, was arrested in July 2008 and is now on trial in The Hague. Karadzic, the leader of Serbian-controlled Bosnian territory during the war, was removed from power under the Dayton Peace accords that ended three years of brutal fighting.
He went into hiding and was working in an alternative medicine clinic in Belgrade, right under the noses of authorities, when he was captured.
He had grown a full white beard and long hair.
Karadzic has insisted on defending himself at The Hague. Prosecutors accuse him of deliberately obstructing the trial with delaying tactics, and judges have threatened to impose a defense lawyer on him if he does not cooperate.
Milosevic was toppled in 2000 and put on trial at The Hague. He died in jail in 2006 before the trial came to an end.
Bosnia genocide suspect Ratko Mladic arrested in Serbia - CNN.com
