London (IRNA)-- The British government has welcomed the arrest of former chief of the Bosnian Serb army Ratko Mladic 16 years after he was indicted by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia.
He was accused of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes.
Foreign Secretary William Hague said in a tweet that it was a “historic moment” for the West Balkans and “belated justice for his victims,” which included tens of thousands of Bosnian Muslims following the break-up of Yugoslavia during the 1990s.
British Defence Secretary Liam Fox also welcomed the arrest, saying it's a chance for Serbia to 'close a very unhappy chapter in their history'.
Serbian President Tadic announced the capture of Mladic at a news conference and said work was under way to extradite him to the international war crimes tribunal in The Hague.
The extensive delay in his arrest, as well as former Serb president Radovan Karadzic which took 13 years before he was sent to the Hague in 2008 has been widely criticised in the background of various conspiracy theories, but this was played down by the EU envoy to the former Yugoslavia Carl Bildt
“The Serbs may be accused of taking too long to nab Mladic, but the United States took some time to catch up with Osama Bin Laden,” Bildt told the BBC.
Foreign Secretary William Hague said in a tweet that it was a “historic moment” for the West Balkans and “belated justice for his victims,” which included tens of thousands of Bosnian Muslims following the break-up of Yugoslavia during the 1990s.
British Defence Secretary Liam Fox also welcomed the arrest, saying it's a chance for Serbia to 'close a very unhappy chapter in their history'.
Serbian President Tadic announced the capture of Mladic at a news conference and said work was under way to extradite him to the international war crimes tribunal in The Hague.
The extensive delay in his arrest, as well as former Serb president Radovan Karadzic which took 13 years before he was sent to the Hague in 2008 has been widely criticised in the background of various conspiracy theories, but this was played down by the EU envoy to the former Yugoslavia Carl Bildt
“The Serbs may be accused of taking too long to nab Mladic, but the United States took some time to catch up with Osama Bin Laden,” Bildt told the BBC.
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