Mladic waited in the Hague

Ratko Mladich is arrested in Serbia - a former commander of the army of Bosnian Serbs.

Serbia President Boris Tadich confirmed: the former chief of staff of the Army of the Bosnian Republic of Serbian Ratko Mladich was arrested in Serbia in the morning of May 26, its delivery to the Hague is being prepared.

According to information that has not yet been officially confirmed by the authorities, Mladic was arrested in the village of Lazarevo near the city of Zrenyanin, a hundred kilometers north of Belgrade. He was detained with the forged documents in the name of Milorad Komadich.

Local observers believe that the Serbian Security Service has already had data on the location of Mladic for a certain time. The general was hiding from justice for almost fifteen years. The International Hague Tribunal on Punishment of Military Criminals in the former Yugoslav brought against Mladic an accusation of severe war crimes, including charges of the Bosnian Muslim genocide in Srebrenitsa in the summer of 1995 .

Says a Radio Liberty correspondent in Belgrade Aiya Kuga :

For almost ten years, the Serbian authorities from time to time claimed that the main accused by the Hague tribunal was intensively sought out by law enforcement agencies and there are suspicions that Mladic is not in Serbia. Citizens of the country simply ceased to believe that the general would be caught. Mladic was found in a very quiet place.

The peasant house is almost in the center of the village of Lazarevo, near the main intersection, a hundred kilometers north of Belgrade.

The view typical of the plain of the voivods: behind a tight fence is a yellow modest house, followed by premises for pets, and then the garden and fields. Locals say that already at four in the morning they noticed seven to eight police vehicles on the street at the gates of their neighbor and were not even surprised, they thought: another search. After all, the owner of the house is Branko Mladich, a relative of the general himself, and special units were already allegedly searched for him there earlier, but did not find him.

Mladichi in Lazarev, near the city of Zrenyanin, live for many years - in the same village there are three households, whose owners are called young people. Locals of a small village-in three thousand inhabitants-everyone knows each other and claim that Ratko Mladic all these years no one there saw that he was the last time to visit relatives in the 90s.

General Mladich, during his arrest, had documents in the name of Milorad Komadich. Official information about the arrest was confirmed by Extraordinary press conference on Thursday day, Serbia President Boris Tadich :

- On behalf of Serbia, I want to tell you that today in the morning during the action conducted jointly by the State Security Service and Ratko Mladic was arrested by the military crime opening service. Once again it is confirmed that Serbia is fully cooperating with the Hague Tribunal - looking for the accused and turning the heavy page of our history. Ratko Mladich will be issued to the Hague tribunal - the UN court, with which we are constructively cooperating. I am very proud of the completion of this case and express my gratitude to the participants in the operation, members of the National Security Council and all the ministries who participated in this action. It is good for Serbia that this page of history is closed, that a new possibility of reconciliation in the region is opened and the possibility of creating a better, progressive society in the southeast of Europe. I am sure that now all the doors are open to Serbia to enter the European Union, to start negotiations on this issue, ”said Boris Tadich.

President Tadich did not reveal the details of the arrest of Ratko Mladic, promising that the heads of the relevant security services will provide this information.

It is unofficially known that Ratko Mladic was taken on the basis of information that a private person reported to special services - perhaps in the hope that he would receive a ten million euros promised by the Serbia Government.

Typically, well -aware B92 B92 reports that Ratko Mladich, contrary to forecasts, calmly surrendered to the police. He looks bad, very, they say, old, because of the stroke not so long ago, he cannot use his right hand. He did not change his appearance and did not even let go of his beards.

On Thursday, in the evening, three cars drove into the courtyard of a special court in Belgrade - for the first meeting with the judge, on which Mladich should be charged with war crimes. His lawyer for three days has the opportunity to appeal the decision to arrest.

The final decision on the issuance of Mladic in the Hague is made by the Ministry of Justice of Serbia - according to a procedure that lasts about seven days. However, the state television of Serbia reported (officially this information has not yet been confirmed) that Ratko Mladich has already been sent to the Hague, that in the middle of the day he was on a plane on the way to Holland.

For the arrest, a very suitable political moment was chosen: on May 26, the EU Commissioner arrives in Belgrade on foreign policy issues of Katherine Ashton, and a week later the UN Security Council should consider the report of the Gaug Gaul Tribunal, Sergey Brammersets, which, as far as is known, does not contain positive assessments regarding the cooperation of the Serbia authorities with the tribunal. And then the problem is resolved: Mladich is arrested ...

Radio Observer Freedom Andrei Sharry , at one time - the correspondent of the RS in the former Yugoslavia, the author of several books dedicated to the Balkan war, says: says:

- Ratko Mladich managed to hide for almost fifteen years, because a rather complicated infrastructure of protection was organized around him. But the protective infrastructure was thinned from year to year. This also applies to political sympathy for Ratko Mladich - both from the Serbian population and from the Serbian elite. Obviously, the defenders of Mladich expired financial resources, but the main thing was the influence in the leadership of Serbia of those forces that, for political or ideological reasons, were interested in Ratko Mladic remained an icon and a martyr of the Serbian people.

There were rumors that in the leadership of Serbian military intelligence, people worked who were interested in hiding Ratko Mladich. In the previous years, in the early 2000s, the general periodically openly appeared in public: either he was seen at a football match, then at a rural wedding. The authorities of Serbia for years have certified the public and their international partners that they have been searching for Ratko Mladic, and the operations to capture have been carried out many times. As you know, he is the last of the large Bosnian-Serbian military leaders and politicians accused of war crimes that remained at large.

We have to find out whether the agent was introduced by special services, surrounded by Ratko Mladic, or his telephone conversations were intercepted, or someone his environment committed betrayal. Experts say that these are the most likely methods by which, perhaps, it was possible to accurately determine the whereabouts of the general.

- What charges were brought by Ratko Mladich?

-The International Hague Tribunal on the punishment of war criminals in the former Yugoslavia made heavy accusations against Ratko Mladic at once on several episodes of the 1993-1996 Bosnian war. Among them, an accusation of genocide will also appear in the end if the text of the prosecution for legal reasons is not revised. The two most serious crimes that Mladich are charged with the organizer (together with Radovan Karadzhich) of the so -called “criminal enterprise”, under the leadership of whose atrocities were happening - the siege of the Bosnian capital of Sarajevo for almost four years, the murder of more than eight thousand unprofitable Muslim men and boys in the area of the city of Srebrenitsa. The former president of the Bosnian Republic of Serbian is already in the Hague. In similar business, several more high -ranking generals and officers are held. Both generals and ordinary soldiers have already been convicted.

The tribunal will either combine all these accusations in the same process against Mladic, or he will be judged with the lucky Karadzhich . In any case, Mladich faces a very significant prison term. I had to get acquainted with documentary evidence and texts of accusations against the general - there was a very large array of facts, you don’t even need to be a lawyer or a large political observer to believe: the hand of the law will be punishing.

- Is there a probability that Radovan Karadzhich and Ratko Mladich will appear together in front of the tribunal?

- Legal ones - however, as I understand the procedure of the Hague tribunal, it is more logical to believe that a separate process is organized over Mladic. Otherwise, you will have to stop the process that is already coming over Karadzhich, re -qualify the accusations - and start the whole procedure again. It is more likely that now the tribunal prosecutor’s office will be a common accusation against Mladic and a few days later he will appear in court. He has to answer the question if he considers himself guilty. If yes, then the process will be relatively short, if not, the hearing will take more than a dozen months.

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