Monday, June 6, 2011

Bosnian Serb war fugitive Ratko Mladic captured

On May 26, 2011, notorious war fugitive Ratko Mladic was arrested in a village in northern Serbia. The former Bosnian Serb general is accused of overseeing the worst massacre in Europe since the end of World War II. He was indicted 16 years ago for his role in the 1995 slaughter of 8,000 Muslim men and boys in Srebenica and for war crimes in the four-year siege of Sarajevo that killed 10,000, including 1,500 children. He will face genocide charges in The Hague. The arrest is a reminder of the atrocities that occurred during the Balkan conflict. --Leanne Burden Seide

Two pictures show Ratko Mladic: Left, in uniform as Bosnian Serb Army chief on Feb. 15, 1994, and, right, during a court appearance in Belgrade on May 27, 2011, hours after his arrest ended a 16-year manhunt for the general accused of masterminding the 1995 Srebrenica massacre. (AFP/Getty Images)
In a Feb. 4, 1996, file photo, skeletal remains of victims of the 1995 massacre at Srebrenica lie on a hilltop just west of Srebrenica, Bosnia. (Alexander Zemlianichenko/Associated Press)
In this July 14, 1995, photo, refugee Ferida Osmanovic from Srebrenica is found hanged in a forest outside the UN base at Tuzla airport. The woman, who looked to be in her early 20s, had hanged herself with a torn blanket. More than 10,000 refugees from the UN safe haven of Srebrenica, captured by the Bosian Serbs, arrived in Tuzla. Bosnia Serb commander General Ratko Mladic announced that approximately 40,000 residents had been cleared from their homes in Srebrenica. (Darko Bandic/Associated Press)
In this Feb. 15, 1994, file photo General Ratko Mladic (center) speaks to a Serbian soldier at the Lukavica barracks on the ouskirts of Sarajevo six days before the NATO ultimatum. (Pascala Guyot/AFP/Getty Images)
In this Aug. 5, 2003, file photo, forensic experts, members of the International Commission on Missing Persons in Bosnia, inspect remains found at a mass grave near the eastern Bosnian village of Memici, 50 miles northeast of Sarajevo. (Amel Emric/Associated Press)
A Bosnian member of the International Commission for Missing Persons inspects bags with body remains, exhumed from mass graves, which he prepares for the process of DNA identification of the victims from the Bosnian war, in Tuzla, Bosnia, on May 27, 2011. The commission keeps finding Mladic's victims in numerous mass graves, spread around Srebrenica. The bodies are then exhumed, identified through DNA analysis, and returned to the families. Almost all Srebrenica victims get buried then in a memorial center near Srebrenica. This year, another 500 will be laid to rest there. (Darko Zabus/Associated Press)
A forensic expert of the International Commission for Missing Persons works on trying to identify the remains of a victim of the Srebrenica massacre, at the commission's center near Tuzla on June 1, 2011. (Dado Ruvic/Reuters)
Ratko Mladic salutes as he makes his first appearance at the International Criminal Tribunal on June 3, 2011, in The Hague, Netherlands, after the former Bosnian Serb Army chief was declared fit to stand trial by a court in Belgrade. Mladic was arrested May 26 after hiding from the law for 16 years. He is charged with atrocities committed during the Bosnian war. (Serge Ligtenberg/Getty Images )

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