TMCnet News
Mladic to be delivered to Yugoslav tribunal: prosecutor+(Japan Economic Newswire Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge)BRUSSELS, April 6_(Kyodo) _ Former Bosnian Serb Gen. Ratko Mladic will be handed over to the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia in The Hague before the end of the month, a spokesman for prosecutor Carla Del Ponte told reporters on Thursday. "We received clear confirmation from (Serbian) Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica on the extradition of Ratko Mladic before the end of the month," spokesman Anton Nikiforov said in The Hague. Mladic, together Radovan Karadzic, is one of the most sought persons by the Yugoslav war crimes tribunal. He was military leader of the Serbs in Bosnia during the war in Yugoslavia and is held responsible for atrocities committed between 1991 and 1995. Mladic also is accused of a leading role in the genocide in Srebrenica in July 1995. "The tribunal will not have fulfilled its historic mission -- and it will not close its doors -- until Karadzic, Mladic, and (Ante) Gotovina have been arrested, brought to The Hague, and tried before the tribunal in accordance with the full procedural protections recognized by our jurisprudence," Theodor Meron, president of the tribunal, said in a speech before the U.N. Security Council a year ago. Several previous attempts by the tribunal to negotiate with the authorities in Serbia to have Mladic sent to The Hague failed. |