Ratko Mladic deemed fit for extradition to UN tribunal

Serbian court rules former Bosnian Serb general is healthy enough to stand trial in The Hague, despite defence’s protests Efforts to put Europe’s most-wanted war crimes suspect on trial in the Hague have crossed their first hurdle with a Belgrade court ruling that Ratko Mladic is fit to be extradited. A spokeswoman said the court determined Mladic was well enough to stand trial despite claims from his defence team that the 69-year old is in poor health. The ruling clears the way for Mladic to be transfered to the international criminal tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, where he faces 15 charges including genocide and murder. Mladic’s defence team has three days to launch an appeal, which is likely to focus on his health. The former general’s son has said Mladic is too ill for extradition after suffering two strokes while on the run. “We are almost certain he cannot be extradited in such condition,” Darko Mladic told reporters after visiting his father in the Belgrade prison where he is being held. “He is in very bad shape. His right arm is half paralysed. His right side is partly numb.” Darko Mladic said the family had requested a transfer to a military hospital. The family called on Russia to send an independent medical team to examine him and guarantee the impartiality of any medical assessment. Mladic, who earned a fearsome reputation as the “butcher of Bosnia”, was brought before the court on Friday after his arrest in a north Serbian village 16 years after commanding the worst atrocity on the continent since the Nazi era. Darko Mladic refused to discuss any events during the 16-year period his father was in hiding, but said the former Serbian military commander denied the charges against him. “His stand is that he’s not guilty of what he’s being accused of,” he said. Russia strongly opposed the 1999 Nato airstrikes against Serbia over Kosovo. It has called for Mladic to recieve a fair trial and said the case should not be used by the Yugoslavia tribunal in The Hague to justify prolonging its work. “There are doubts that the trial of Mladic in the UN war crimes tribunal will be 100% objective and just,” said Konstantin Kosachyov, who heads the international affairs committee in Russia’s parliament. War crimes prosecutors are hoping Mladic will appear before the examining judge again on Friday to complete the first stage of the extradition process. This stage will be followed by a three-day gap, after which Mladic will have three days to decide whether to appeal. The Serbian ministry of justice will then determine the extradition request. Authorities in The Hague expect Mladic to be there next week and have said he will receive a full medical examination. Mladic is wanted for the mass murder of almost 8,000 men and boys in Srebrenica. His surprise arrest turned a page in the history of the Balkans, offering Serbia closure on decades as a virtual international pariah and giving the country a chance to take its place as a pivotal regional democracy eventually anchored in the European Union. The 69-year-old retired general, who commanded the Bosnian Serb military during the 1992-95 war, was taken to Belgrade after being arrested at a cousin’s home in Lazarevo, north-east of Belgrade. When Mladic appeared in court on Thursday night he looked frail and walked slowly. He wore a baseball cap and could be heard on state TV saying “good day” to those present. Mladic’s lawyer said the judge cut short the questioning because the suspect’s “poor physical state” left him unable to communicate. “He is aware he is under arrest, he knows where he is, and he said he does not recognise The Hague tribunal,” Milos Saljic said. The deputy war crimes prosecutor Bruno Vekaric said Mladic was taking a lot of medicine but “responds very rationally to everything that is going on”. More details have emerged of the capture of Mladic, who had been living under the alias Milorad Komadic. According to officials in Belgrade and accounts to the Serbian media he wore no disguise and put up no resistance when detained by the Serbian security services and Serbian war crimes unit. “I am the person you are looking for,” he reportedly said when arrested in part of a cottage once occupied by the now dead parents of his cousin Branko Mladic. He is said to have been dressed in multiple layers of clothing, including pullovers, although it is summer in Serbia. He had his own identity card, although it formally expired in 1999. There were two guns at the property. Asked why Mladic did not resist arrest, his lawyer is reported to have said the officers were “just children”, in other words very young. Reports about his life there differ. One version holds that he spent a lot of time indoors, while one 20-year-old has claimed to a newpaper that he had worked for a time in the nearby industrial town of Zrenjanin. After his arrest Mladic indicated that he had been following media reports of the war crimes prosecutors’ long pursuit of him. On Thursday night residents took to the streets to show their support for Mladic, singing Serbian nationalist songs. “To us Mladic is a hero, a military hero,” said one, who would only give his name as Paul. “He protected us from Croatia, Bosnia Herzegovina, even Slovenia. He saved our families.” The image of a frail and sickly rural retiree was a far cry from the strutting, imperious commander of the 1990s who was a monstrous figure to the Muslims of Bosnia. His name is synonymous with the Srebrenica massacre of July 1995 when Mladic’s forces overran the Bosnian Muslim “safe haven” hill town, then methodically rounded up the males and murdered almost 8,000. • Additional reporting by Kevin Burden in Lazarevo Ratko Mladic War crimes Serbia Bosnia and Herzegovina United Nations International criminal court Peter Beaumont Ian Traynor James Meikle guardian.co.uk

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