Posted on 05/26/2011 1:40:23 PM PDT by Cardhu
Ratko Mladic, the former Bosnian Serb general arrested for alleged war crimes, has appeared at a closed session in a Belgrade court.
The former general, wanted for alleged war crimes committed during the 1992-95 Bosnian conflict, looked frail and walked very slowly as he was escorted by four guards in the first step of the extradition process on Thursday.
He wore a navy-blue jacket and a baseball hat with gray hair sticking out the sides, and carried what appeared to be a towel in his left hand.
He could be heard on state TV saying "good day" to someone in the court. A guard could be heard telling him, "Let's go, general."
Mladic's lawyer said the judge cut short the questioning because the suspect's "poor physical state" left him unable to communicate.
Attorney Milos Saljic said Mladic asserted that he will not answer to the authority of the UN war-crimes tribunal in the Netherlands.
"He is aware that he is under arrest, he knows where he is and he said he does not recognise The Hague tribunal," Saljic said.
Questioning of Mladic will resume on Friday, deputy war crimes prosecutor said.
Arrest announced
Earlier on Thursday, the Serbian president annouced his arrest, on the run for many years.
"On behalf of the Republic of Serbia we announce that Ratko Mladic has been arrested," Boris Tadic, the country's president, said.
"Today we closed one chapter of our difficult history that will bring us one step closer to full reconciliation in the region.
"All criminals must face justice," he said.
Tadic said the 69-year-old would be extradited to the UN war crimes tribunal in the Hague, but did not give a time frame.
Catherine Ashton, the European foreign policy chief, however, said Mladic was expected to be extradited in nine or 10 days.
Local media had first reported that a man who identified himself as Milorad Komadic had been detained and was believed to be Mladic.
According to Al Jazeera's Aljosa Milenkovic, Mladic was arrested at 05.30am (03.30 GMT) on Thursday. He was clean shaven, looked very much to himself, but much older. His right arm was apparently paralysed and he did not resist arrest.
Rasim Ljajic, the minister in charge of the search for fugitive war criminals, said Mladic "looked pale as if he had stayed indoors for a long period of time".
"Mladic had two loaded guns he did not use. He was co-operative and did not resist arrest," he said. "He spoke calmly with officers."
Belgrade's B92 radio said he was arrested in a village close to the northern Serbian town of Zrenjanin.
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Hasn’t history vindicated these men? How could Serbia simply leave the territories awarded to them at the end of WWI by the Allies? They did nothing Abraham Lincoln didn’t do; in fact, Lincoln killed many more people.
That's simultaneously the least intelligent and most anti-American comment I've read on FR in quite a while.
Feel free to cite the massacre in which Abraham Lincoln personally ordered the extrajudicial execution of 8,000 unarmed prisoners.
Abraham Lincoln invaded the South to “preserve the union” (akin to “preserving Yugoslavia” - the one created by the same Allies that demanded it be dismantled seventy years later). Many more than 8,000 people died in his illegal war to stifle the states’ guaranteed constitutional right to leave the union.
Don’t let the facts cloud your biases, though; the Southern states (birthplace of so many founding fathers) were every bit as “American” as (if not more than) the Northern states (and still are).
By the way, states have no rights. States are governments, and governments have no rights. They have powers. Only people have rights. No state has any imagined "right" let alone any power to violate federal law. The Constitution is quite explicitly clear on that point.
Obviously the SOuthern people exercised their right to leave the union, and over 250K of them were killed for it.
We will never agree on this; a good evening to you.
Any details on President Lincoln ordering the extrajudicial execution of 8,000 or more unarmed prisoners? Kind of a serious allegation to just leave hanging out there without a shred of evidence.
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