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Mladic to Return to Court Friday

      May 27, 2011

Photo: AP

   Newspapers on a stand in Sarajevo,Bosnia, Friday, May 27, 2011

   Serbian war crimes suspect Ratko Mladic is due back in a Belgrade court
   Friday for a hearing on his extradition to a U.N. war crimes tribunal.
   He is wanted for atrocities committed during the Bosnian war.
   The former Bosnian Serb army commander was in court Thursday following
   his arrest in northern Serbia after 16 years in hiding. That appearance
   was cut short due to what his lawyer said was Mladic's poor health.
   Doctors are determining if he is fit to continue.
   The United Nations tribunal on war crimes committed in the former
   Yugoslavia indicted Mladic in 1995 for atrocities he allegedly carried
   out or ordered during the three-year siege of the Bosnian city of
   Sarajevo, and for the killing of 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys near
   the city of Srebrenica.
   The Serbian court will determine if all conditions for Mladic's
   extradition to The Hague are fulfilled. Serbian officials say the
   process will take about a week.
   Russia, an ally of Serbia, has called for the trial to be fair and
   unbiased. The Russian Foreign Ministry said Friday the trial should not
   be used to drag out the work of the tribunal.
   The capture of Mladic and one more fugitive still at large, Croatian
   Serb Goran Hadzic, is a key condition in Belgrade's bid to become a
   candidate for European Union membership.
   Serbian President Boris Tadic has told a U.S. news network (CNN) claims
   that Belgrade officials knew where Mladic was hiding are "rubbish."
   Croatian President Ivo Josipovic said the capture of Mladic is crucial
   for the international reputation of Serbia.
   Bosnia's organization of families of war victims expressed relief after
   16 years of waiting for the arrest of one of Europe's most wanted men.

   Some information for this report was provided by AP, AFP and Reuters.

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