Ratko Mladic, the ruthless Bosnian Serb military leader charged with orchestrating Europe’s worst massacre of civilians since World War II, was arrested before dawn at a relative’s home in a tiny Serbian village on May 26 after a 16-year hunt for the architect of what a war-crimes judge called “scenes from hell.” He appeared at a closed session in a Belgrade court, looking frail and walking very slowly as he was escorted by four guards in the first step of the extradition process.
Mladic’s arrest removed the most important barrier to the Western-leaning Serbian government’s efforts to join the European Union and to rehabilitate the country’s image as a pariah state that sheltered the men responsible for the worst atrocities of the Balkan wars of the 1990s. Mladic had two pistols when he was arrested but offered no resistance, and he appeared shrunken and pale, Serbian officials and media said. Serbia raised its national security level and banned all gatherings after nationalist groups pledged to pour into the streets in protest. Mladic, 69, faces life imprisonment if tried and convicted of genocide and other charges. The UN court has no death penalty.
International law experts said they hoped the arrest would send a message to figures like Libya’s Muammar Qaddafi that no leader charged with a war crime could expect to escape justice forever.