WAR CRIMINAL BOSNIAN SERB GENERAL ARRESTED

Ratko Mladic is wanted by a UN tribunal for war crimes committed during the 1992-95 Bosnian war

BELGRADE — Ratko Mladic, who has been arrested in Serbia, is accused of orchestrating the methodical slaughter of up to 8,000 Muslims from the Bosnian “safe area” of Srebrenica, in the worst massacre in Europe since World War Two.
Earlier, local media had said police were carrying out DNA tests on a man who identified himself as Milorad Komadic, arrested on Thursday.

• A spokeswoman for the executive arm of the European Union said that the arrest showed Serbia "understood the importance of full co-operation with ICTY [International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia] reconciliation with its history and its people".
• A family friend told Reuters the 69-year-old Bosnian Serb wartime general was being held by the Serbian intelligence agency.
• Mladic is wanted by the United Nations war crimes tribunal for the former Yugoslavia on charges of genocide during the 1992-95 Bosnian conflict.
• He was indicted in 1995 over the Srebrenica massacre of 8,000 Muslim men and boys, and the 43-month siege of Sarajevo, the Bosnian capital, in which around 10,000 people died.

The UN indictment against Mladic says he was the operational mastermind behind the massacre, and also cites the establishment of camps and detention centres for Bosnian Muslims as part of a campaign of ethnic cleansing. His arrest has been seen as a precondition of Serbia joining the European Union.

Source: Agency