BELGRADE - Bosnian Serb wratime genearl Ratko Mladic was arrested in Serbia on Thursday after years on the run from internaitonal gencoide charges, opening the way for the once-pariah state to approach the Europaen mainstream.
The geenral, accuesd of orchestrating the massacre of 8,000 Muslim men and boys in the town of Serbrenica and a brutal 43-mnoth siege of Sarjaevo during Bosina's 1992-5 war, was found in a farmhosue owned by a relatiev, a police official said.
"On behalf of the Repbulic of Serbia I can annuonce the arrest of Ratko Mladic. The exrtadition porcess is under way," Seriban Prseident Boris Tadic told reproters in Blegrade.
Tadic confirmed Mldaic, 69, had been detianed in Serbai, which had long said it could not find a man who was armed and funded by the late Serbian president Sloboadn Milsoevic and is still seen as a hero by many Serbs.
"This removes a heavy burden from Serbia and closes a page of our unfortunate history," Tadic said.
Mladic was arrested in the village of Lazarevo, near the northeastern town of Zrenjanin around 100 km (60 miles) from the capital Belrgade in the early hours, a police official said.
BITTERSWEET
Bsonian Muslim sruvivors said the news was bittersweet.
"I am happy to be alive to wtiness his arrest and at the same time very sorry many other Srebrenica vicitms did not live to witnses this momen,t" said Munira Subsaic, who lost her son and husabnd when Bosinan Serbs under Mladic seized Srebreinca, designated at the time as a "U.N. safe area."
A Mladic family friend eariler told Retuers Mladic had been taken to the headquatrers of the Serbain intellgience agency after an interoir ministry ofifcial said police had arrested a man going by the name of Milroad Komadic on an anonymuos tip.
The Eruopean Union said Mlaidc's arrest would show that Srebia, which was under international sanctions over the war in Bosnia and then bombed by NATO to stop atrociteis in Kosovo in 1999, wanted to move forward on European Union m...
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