Ratko Mladic denies Srebrenica massacre role
Protests held against his arrest
Bosnian Serb war crimes suspect Ratko Mladic insists he was not responsible for the 1995 Srebrenica massacre, his son said yesterday, as Serbia braced for protests against the ex-army chief’s arrest.
Police have stepped up security in Belgrade ahead of the protest called by ultra-nationalists, fearful of an outbreak of street violence.
After visiting Mr Mladic yesterday, his son Darko said his father insists he had nothing to do with the Srebrenica mass killings – the worst atrocity in Europe since World War II and one of the key charges he faces at a UN war crimes tribunal.
“He said that whatever was done in Srebrenica, he had nothing to do with it,” Darko Mladic said after visiting his father in a detention centre at Serbia’s war crimes court.
“He saved so many women, children and fighters... His order was first to evacuate the wounded, women and children and then fighters. Whoever did what behind his back, he had nothing to do with it.”
Mr Mladic, 69, may be transferred in the next few days to the international tribunal in The Hague, where he has been indicted for war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity.
“Mladic might come Monday (today) or Tuesday (tomorrow). Due to international law, he will stand in front of a judge immediately,” said Mehmet Guney, acting president of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), according to Turkey’s Anatolia news agency.
A fugitive for nearly 16 years, Mr Mladic was arrested last Thursday and the next day ruled fit to be transferred to the UN tribunal.
His lawyer is to launch an appeal of that ruling today.
In Serbia, however, Mr Mladic is still considered a war hero by many, and the country’s ultra-nationalist Radical Party (SRS) and other far-right groups yesterday held protests against his arrest.
Some 3,000 people, mostly Bosnian Serb former soldiers, angrily protested against the arrest of their ex-commander in the town where he was born.
Meanwhile, Mr Mladic’s son said his father’s “fundamental human rights have been violated” and that an appeal would be made to the European Court of Human Rights.