War crimes charges against Mladic War crimes charges against Mladic DUSAN STOJANOVIC Share 1 / 8 FILE In this Monday, June 22, 1992 file photo a wounded Sarajevo resident sits in shock next to two other seriously wounded civilians moments after one of several mortar shells landed in central Sarajevo. The indictment against Ratko Mladic, who went on trial Wednesday May 16, 2012 at the U.N. war crimes tribunal in the Hague, Netherlands, holds the former Bosnian Serb army commander "individually criminally responsible for planning, instigating, ordering and/or aiding and abetting the crimes charged in this indictment." Mladic is charged with 11 counts of genocide, crimes against humanity and violations of the laws and customs of war.

Between May 1992 and November 1995 Mladic participated in a campaign of sniping and shelling of Bosnia's capital Sarajevo, the primary purpose of which “was to spread terror among the civilian population.”(AP Photo/Santiago Lyon) FILE In this Monday, June 22, 1992 file photo a wounded Sarajevo resident sits in shock next to two other seriously wounded civilians moments after one of several mortar shells landed in central Sarajevo. The indictment against Ratko Mladic, who went on trial Wednesday May 16, 2012 at the U.N. war crimes tribunal in the Hague, Netherlands, holds the former Bosnian Serb army commander "individually criminally responsible for planning, instigating, ordering and/or aiding and abetting the crimes charged in this indictment." Mladic is charged with 11 counts of genocide, crimes against humanity and violations of the laws and customs of war.

Between May 1992 and November 1995 Mladic participated in a campaign of sniping and shelling of Bosnia's capital Sarajevo, the primary purpose of which “was to spread terror among the civilian population.”(AP Photo/Santiago Lyon) The indictment against Ratko Mladic — who went on trial Wednesday at the U.N. war crimes tribunal in the Hague, Netherlands — holds the former Bosnian Serb army commander "individually criminally responsible for planning, instigating, ordering and/or aiding and abetting the crimes charged in this indictment." Mladic is charged with 11 counts of genocide, crimes against humanity and violations of the laws and customs of war. The counts below detail the atrocities during the 1992-1995 Bosnian war that Mladic is accused of commanding. COUNT 1: GENOCIDE Ratko Mladic, along with other former Serbian and Bosnian Serb leaders is accused of "destroying" entire groups of Muslim and Croat communities in various parts of Bosnia.

These include the 3-year relentless shelling of the capital, Sarajevo, and several other small towns such as Foca, where Serbs were particularly brutal, executing local Muslims and throwing them into a river. Some of the remains were only found last year. COUNT 2: GENOCIDE This count of genocide refers to the mass killing of over 7,000 men and boys in Srebrenica, in July 1995, which is Europe's worst bloodshed since World War II. Mladic's troops executed almost the entire Srebrenica male population in a few days, burying them later in mass graves around the town. Many were later found with their hands tied behind their back and identification of the remains is still ongoing. COUNT 3: PERSECUTIONS The count relates to the persecution on political and religious grounds against Bosnia's Muslims and Croats in the Serb-controlled towns like Banja Luka, in western Bosnia, or Bijeljina in the east. Non-Serbs in these and other towns were evicted from their homes by Serb troops, held in prison camps, tortured, raped and killed.

Images or skinny, naked prisoners from the camps in western Bosnia in 1992-93 reminded the world of the Nazi-era camps. COUNTS 4, 5 and 6: EXTERMINATION, MURDER These counts of the indictment refer to the widespread killings of non-Serbs that took place in the territories under the Bosnian Serb control, but also on the brutal attacks on the capital, Sarajevo, which prosecutors say were designed to "spread terror." Mladic's troops from 1992-95 were constantly sniping and shelling Sarajevo, killing thousands of civilians, the longest siege of a capital city since WWII. COUNTS 7 AND 8: DEPORTATION, INHUMANE ACTS Mladic's troops also used forced deportation and various inhumane acts, such as sexual violence, killing, and destruction of houses and cultural monuments and sacred sites, to rid the Serb-controller territories of non-Serbs. This was started in 1992 in what became known as ethnic cleansing. Entire communities were forcefully displaced and the U.N.

Security Council set up so-called safe havens in 1993 to protect those communities from Serb troops. Those included Srebrenica, Zepa , Gorazde and Sarajevo. COUNTS 9 AND 10: TERROR, UNLAWFUL ATTACKS The main focus of this count is on the siege of Sarajevo and the campaign of sniping and shelling to spread terror among the civilian population. Mladic's forces sniped and shelled civilians as they conducted every day civilian activities. People were injured and killed inside their homes. The lack of gas, electricity or running water forced people to leave their homes, where they were targeted. People were also targeted while queuing for water or in the markets. Two mortar attacks on the Markale markets killed more than one hundred people and wounded more than 200. COUNT 11: TAKING OF HOSTAGES This separate count refers to the events in 1995, when Mladic's troops took hostage U.N. peacekeepers in Bosnia to force NATO to prevent attacks on Bosnian Serb positions around Sarajevo.

Between approximately 26 May 1995 and 19 June 1995, Bosnian Serb forces detained over 200 U.N. peacekeepers and military observers in various locations, sending out images of peacekeepers tied to antennas or radars in a warning to NATO. Some of the detainees were assaulted or otherwise maltreated during their captivity. They were released in several stages after an intervention from then-Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic. Reblog Genocide in Bosnia Genocide in Bosnia (1992-1995) Although many different ethnic and religious groups had resided together for 40 years under Yugoslavia’s repressive communist government, this changed when the country began to collapse during the fall of communism in the early 1990s. The provinces of Slovenia and Croatia declared independence, and war quickly followed between Serbia and these breakaway republics. Ethnic tensions were brought to the forefront, and people who had lived peacefully for years as neighbors turned against each other and took up arms.

When Bosnia attempted to secede, Serbia – under Slobodan Miloševic’s leadership – invaded with the claim that it was there to “free” fellow Serbian Orthodox Christians living in Bosnia. Starting in April 1992, Serbia set out to “ethnically cleanse” Bosnian territory by systematically removing all Bosnian Muslims, known as Bosniaks. Serbia, together with ethnic Bosnian Serbs, attacked Bosniaks with former Yugoslavian military equipment and surrounded Sarajevo, the capital city. Many Bosniaks were driven into concentration camps, where women and girls were systematically gang-raped and other civilians were tortured, starved and murdered. In 1993, the United Nations (UN) Security Council declared that Sarajevo, Goradze, Srebrenica and other Muslim enclaves were to be safe areas, protected by a contingent of UN peacekeepers. But in July 1995, Serbs committed the largest massacre in Europe since World War II in one such area, Srebrenica.

An estimated 23,000 women, children and elderly people were put on buses and driven to Muslim-controlled territory, while 8,000 “battle-age” men were detained and slaughtered. The so-called safe area of Srebrenica fell without a single shot fired by the UN. In 1994, NATO initiated air strikes against Bosnian Serbs to stop the attacks. In December 1995, U.S.-led negotiations in Dayton, Ohio (The Dayton Peace Accords) ended the conflict in Bosnia, and a force was created to maintain the ceasefire. Since the end of the conflict, the International Criminal Tribunal for Yugoslavia (ICTY) at The Hague has charged more than 160 persons. Convictions have included Serb, Croat and Bosniaks, though Serbians and Bosnian Serbs have faced the majority of charges. In 2001, former-President Miloševic was captured, but he died in his cell in 2006. Radovan Karadžic, the supreme commander of the Bosnian Serb armed forces, was captured in 2008, and is being tried in The Hague on genocide charges.

Ratko Mladic, chief of staff of the Bosnian Serb Army, was captured in May 2011 and is charged with 11 counts, including genocide and crimes against humanity. Other Resources on This Topic Books: “Genocide: Modern Crimes Against Humanity,” by Brendan January “The Myth of Ethnic War: Serbia and Croatia in the 1990s,” by V.P. Ganon “The Fall of Yugoslavia,” by Misha Glenny “Genocide in Bosnia: The Policy of Ethnic Cleansing,” by Norman Cigar Web Sites: Ratko Mladic's Bosnian genocide trial begins (+video) - CSMonitor.com Ratko Mladic's Bosnian genocide trial begins (+video) Latest News Former Bosnian Serb Army chief Ratko Mladic faces 11 counts of genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. He is the last suspect from the 1992-95 Bosnian war to go on trial in The Hague.

By Mike Corder, Associated Press May 16, 2012 Save for later Saved Former Bosnian Serb army commander Ratko Mladic attends his trial at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) at The Hague May 16. At his trial on Wednesday, Mladic faces 11 counts of genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes. Toussaint Kluiters/Reuters View Caption of THE HAGUE, Netherlands — Twenty years after his troops began brutally ethnically cleansing Bosnian towns and villages of non-Serbs, Gen. Ratko Mladic went on trial Wednesday at the Yugoslav war crimes tribunal accused of 11 counts of genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes. The ailing 70-year-old Mladic's appearance at the UN court war crimes tribunal marked the end of a long wait for justice to survivors of the 1992-95 war that left some 100,000 people dead. The trial is also a landmark for the UN court and international justice — Mladic is the last suspect from the Bosnian war to go on trial here.

In Bosnia , leaders and victims hailed a historic day in the country's recovery from its war wounds, while some Serbs lamented Mladic's trial. Photos of the Day Photos of the Day 01/17 But in the former Serb stronghold of Pale, people who gathered to watch the trial on TV applauded as they saw their general enter the courtroom. "Mladic is our hero, it's sad that we see him there. We blame the Hague and international community," said Milan Ivanovic, a 20-year-old law student. Mladic, in a suit and tie and looking healthier than at previous pretrial hearings, but still a shadow of the burly strutting wartime general. He suffered a stroke while in hiding and has had other health problems since arriving in The Hague . He gave a thumbs-up and clapped toward the court's public gallery as the trial got under way. He occasionally wrote notes and showed no emotion as prosecutors began outlining his alleged crimes. One woman in the public gallery called him a "vulture" as prosecutors began two days of laying out their case for judges.

After a break in proceedings, Presiding Judge Alphons Orie of the Netherlands rebuked Mladic and the public about "inappropriate interactions" and said he could shield Mladic behind a screen if it continued. Earlier, Orie said the court was considering postponing the presentation of evidence, due to start May 29, due to "errors" by prosecutors in disclosing evidence to the defense. Prosecutor Dermot Groome said he would not oppose a "reasonable adjournment." Groome began his opening statement by focusing on the plight of a 14-year-old boy whose father and uncle were among 150 men murdered by Bosnian Serb forces in November 1992, part of a pattern of atrocities aimed at driving Muslims and Croats out of territory coveted by Serbs. "The world watched in disbelief that in neighborhoods and villages within Europe a genocide appeared to be in progress," he said. Groome said Mladic's forces continued such killings through to 1995, when they massacred some 8,000 Muslim men in the Srebrenica enclave, the worst mass murder in Europe since World War II.

Groome signaled that prosecutors would use Mladic's own words against him in the trial, drawing on a stash of wartime diaries, radio intercepts, and appearances he made on television during the war. In one such appearance, Groome showed television images of Mladic inspecting Serb artillery dug into hills surrounding the capital, Sarajevo , and denying involvement in war crimes — foreshadowing his defense in The Hague that his actions were intended only to protect Serbs. "I did not take part in any crimes. I have only defended my people," Mladic said. However in another video, he is heard boasting, "whenever I come by Sarajevo, I kill someone in passing ... I go kick the hell out of the Turks." Groome also showed judges video of the bloody aftermath of a notorious shelling of a market in Markale, in the Bosnian capital Sarajevo, that killed dozens of people. He said all the attacks were part of an "overarching" plan to ethnically cleanse large parts of Bosnia of non-Serbs. Mladic has defiantly refused to enter pleas, but he denies wrongdoing, saying he acted to defend Serbs in Bosnia.

If he is convicted, he faces a maximum sentence of life imprisonment. His lawyer, Branko Lukic, said Mladic's spirits were up ahead of the trial. "He's feeling better," he said. "But for a man in the state he is — he's a man in generally bad shape — he's feeling pretty good," Lukic said. Mladic's trial opened as the case against his former political master, Radovan Karadzic , has reached its halfway stage at the same court. Both men face virtually identical 11-count indictments alleging they masterminded the ethnic cleansing of Bosnia. The man accused of fomenting conflicts throughout the Balkans in the 1990s, former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic , died in his cell here in The Hague in 2006 before judges could deliver verdicts in his trial. Karadzic and Mladic were indicted together 17 years ago, but their cases were split when Karadzic was captured in Serbia in 2008 and transferred to The Hague.

It was another three years before Mladic was finally arrested in a village near Belgrade , ending 15 years as one of the world's most-wanted fugitives. Much of the evidence cited Wednesday by Groome has already been aired in several previous trials in The Hague. In Srebrenica, widows and mothers of the massacre victims gathered to watch the trial together and reacted with outrage to Mladic's calm demeanor and apparent lack of emotions. "This is so painful for us. It really hurts. We did not lose some chicken. We lost our sons," said Suhreta Malic, who lost her children and over 30 other family members in the massacre. Crying, she sat in front of the TV with the photos of her dead children in her hands. Sabina Niksic in Srebrenica contributed to this report. Get daily or weekly updates from CSMonitor.com delivered to your inbox. Sign up today . Next up Get the Monitor stories you care about delivered to your inbox.

Daily Bosnian Genocide - Facts & Summary - HISTORY.com Google Background In the aftermath of the Second World War, the Balkan states of Bosnia-Herzegovina, Serbia, Montenegro, Croatia, Slovenia and Macedonia became part of the Federal People’s Republic of Yugoslavia. After the death of longtime Yugoslav leader Josip Broz Tito in 1980, growing nationalism among the different Yugoslav republics threatened to split their union apart. This process intensified after the mid-1980s with the rise of the Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic, who helped foment discontent between Serbians in Bosnia and Croatia and their Croatian, Bosniak and Albanian neighbors. In 1991, Slovenia, Croatia and Macedonia declared their independence; during the war in Croatia that followed, the Serb-dominated Yugoslav army supported Serbian separatists there in their brutal clashes with Croatian forces. Did You Know? In 2001, Serbian General Radislav Krstic, who played a major role in the Srebrenica massacre was convicted of genocide and sentenced to 46 years in prison. In Bosnia, Muslims represented the largest single population group by 1971.

More Serbs and Croats emigrated over the next two decades, and in a 1991 census Bosnia’s population of some 4 million was 44 percent Bosniak, 31 percent Serb, and 17 percent Croatian. Elections held in late 1990 resulted in a coalition government split between parties representing the three ethnicities (in rough proportion to their populations) and led by the Bosniak Alija Izetbegovic. As tensions built inside and outside the country, the Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic and his Serbian Democratic Party withdrew from government and set up their own “Serbian National Assembly.” On March 3, 1992, after a referendum vote (which Karadzic’s party blocked in many Serb-populated areas), President Izetbegovic proclaimed Bosnia’s independence. Struggle for Control in Bosnia Far from seeking independence for Bosnia, Bosnian Serbs wanted to be part of a dominant Serbian state in the Balkans–the “Greater Serbia” that Serbian separatists had long envisioned.

In early May 1992, two days after the United States and the European Community (precursor to the European Union) recognized Bosnia’s independence, Bosnian Serb forces with the backing of Milosevic and the Serb-dominated Yugoslav army launched their offensive with a bombardment of Bosnia’s capital, Sarajevo. They attacked Bosniak-dominated town in eastern Bosnia, including Zvornik, Foca, and Visegrad, forcibly expelling Bosniak civilians from the region in a brutal process that later was identified as “ethnic cleansing.” (Ethnic cleansing differs from genocide in that its primary goal is the expulsion of a group of people from a geographical area and not the actual physical destruction of that group, even though the same methods–including murder, rape, torture and forcible displacement–may be used.) Though Bosnian government forces tried to defend the territory, sometimes with the help of the Croatian army, Bosnian Serb forces were in control of nearly three-quarters of the country by the end of 1993, and Karadzic’s party had set up their own Republika Srpska in the east.

Most of the Bosnian Croats had left the country, while a significant Bosniak population remained only in smaller towns. Several peace proposals between a Croatian-Bosniak federation and Bosnian Serbs failed when the Serbs refused to give up any territory. The United Nations (U.N.) refused to intervene in the conflict in Bosnia, but a campaign spearheaded by its High Commissioner for Refugees provided humanitarian aid to its many displaced, malnourished and injured victims. Attack on Srebrenica: July 1995 By the summer of 1995, three towns in eastern Bosnia–Srebrenica, Zepa and Gorazde–remained under control of the Bosnian government. The U.N. had declared these enclaves “safe havens” in 1993, to be disarmed and protected by international peacekeeping forces. On July 11, however, Bosnian Serb forces advanced on Srebrenica, overwhelming a battalion of Dutch peacekeeping forces stationed there. Serbian forces subsequently separated the Bosniak civilians at Srebrenica, putting the women and girls on buses and sending them to Bosnian-held territory.

Some of the women were raped or sexually assaulted, while the men and boys who remained behind were killed immediately or bussed to mass killing sites. Estimates of Bosniaks killed by Serb forces at Srebrenica range from around 7,000 to more than 8,000. After Bosnian Serb forces captured Zepa that same month and exploded a bomb in a crowded Sarajevo market, the international community began to respond more forcefully to the ongoing conflict and its ever-growing civilian death toll. In August 1995, after the Serbs refused to comply with a U.N. ultimatum, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) joined efforts with Bosnian and Croatian forces for three weeks of bombing Bosnian Serb positions and a ground offensive. With Serbia’s economy crippled by U.N. trade sanctions and its military forces under assault in Bosnia after three years of warfare, Milosevic agreed to enter negotiations that October.

The U.S.-sponsored peace talks in Dayton, Ohio in November 1995 (which included Izetbegovic, Milosevic and Croatian President Franjo Tudjman) resulted in the creation of a federalized Bosnia divided between a Croat-Bosniak federation and a Serb republic. International Response Though the international community did little to prevent the systematic atrocities committed against Bosniaks and Croats in Bosnia while they were occurring, it did actively seek justice against those who committed them. In May 1993, the U.N. Security Council created the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) at The Hague, Netherlands. It was the first international tribunal since the Nuremberg Trials in 1945-46 and the first to prosecute genocide, among other war crimes. Radovan Karadzic and the Bosnian Serb military commander, General Ratko Mladic, were among those indicted by the ICTY for genocide and other crimes against humanity. Over the better part of the next two decades, the ICTY charged more than 160 individuals of crimes committed during conflict in the former Yugoslavia.

Brought before the tribunal in 2002 on charges of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes, Slobodan Milosevic served as his own defense lawyer; his poor health led to long delays in the trial until he was found dead in his prison cell in 2006. In 2007, the International Court of Justice issued its ruling in a historic civil lawsuit brought by Bosnia against Serbia. Though the court called the massacre at Srebrenica genocide and said that Serbia “could and should” have prevented it and punished those who committed it, it stopped short of declaring Serbia guilty of the genocide itself. Tags War crimes charges against Mladic War crimes charges against Mladic DUSAN STOJANOVIC Share 1 / 8 FILE In this Monday, June 22, 1992 file photo a wounded Sarajevo resident sits in shock next to two other seriously wounded civilians moments after one of several mortar shells landed in central Sarajevo. The indictment against Ratko Mladic, who went on trial Wednesday May 16, 2012 at the U.N.

war crimes tribunal in the Hague, Netherlands, holds the former Bosnian Serb army commander "individually criminally responsible for planning, instigating, ordering and/or aiding and abetting the crimes charged in this indictment." Mladic is charged with 11 counts of genocide, crimes against humanity and violations of the laws and customs of war. Between May 1992 and November 1995 Mladic participated in a campaign of sniping and shelling of Bosnia's capital Sarajevo, the primary purpose of which “was to spread terror among the civilian population.”(AP Photo/Santiago Lyon) FILE In this Monday, June 22, 1992 file photo a wounded Sarajevo resident sits in shock next to two other seriously wounded civilians moments after one of several mortar shells landed in central Sarajevo. The indictment against Ratko Mladic, who went on trial Wednesday May 16, 2012 at the U.N.

war crimes tribunal in the Hague, Netherlands, holds the former Bosnian Serb army commander "individually criminally responsible for planning, instigating, ordering and/or aiding and abetting the crimes charged in this indictment." Mladic is charged with 11 counts of genocide, crimes against humanity and violations of the laws and customs of war. Between May 1992 and November 1995 Mladic participated in a campaign of sniping and shelling of Bosnia's capital Sarajevo, the primary purpose of which “was to spread terror among the civilian population.”(AP Photo/Santiago Lyon) The indictment against Ratko Mladic — who went on trial Wednesday at the U.N. war crimes tribunal in the Hague, Netherlands — holds the former Bosnian Serb army commander "individually criminally responsible for planning, instigating, ordering and/or aiding and abetting the crimes charged in this indictment." Mladic is charged with 11 counts of genocide, crimes against humanity and violations of the laws and customs of war. The counts below detail the atrocities during the 1992-1995 Bosnian war that Mladic is accused of commanding.

COUNT 1: GENOCIDE Ratko Mladic, along with other former Serbian and Bosnian Serb leaders is accused of "destroying" entire groups of Muslim and Croat communities in various parts of Bosnia. These include the 3-year relentless shelling of the capital, Sarajevo, and several other small towns such as Foca, where Serbs were particularly brutal, executing local Muslims and throwing them into a river. Some of the remains were only found last year. COUNT 2: GENOCIDE This count of genocide refers to the mass killing of over 7,000 men and boys in Srebrenica, in July 1995, which is Europe's worst bloodshed since World War II. Mladic's troops executed almost the entire Srebrenica male population in a few days, burying them later in mass graves around the town. Many were later found with their hands tied behind their back and identification of the remains is still ongoing. COUNT 3: PERSECUTIONS The count relates to the persecution on political and religious grounds against Bosnia's Muslims and Croats in the Serb-controlled towns like Banja Luka, in western Bosnia, or Bijeljina in the east.

Non-Serbs in these and other towns were evicted from their homes by Serb troops, held in prison camps, tortured, raped and killed. Images or skinny, naked prisoners from the camps in western Bosnia in 1992-93 reminded the world of the Nazi-era camps. COUNTS 4, 5 and 6: EXTERMINATION, MURDER These counts of the indictment refer to the widespread killings of non-Serbs that took place in the territories under the Bosnian Serb control, but also on the brutal attacks on the capital, Sarajevo, which prosecutors say were designed to "spread terror." Mladic's troops from 1992-95 were constantly sniping and shelling Sarajevo, killing thousands of civilians, the longest siege of a capital city since WWII. COUNTS 7 AND 8: DEPORTATION, INHUMANE ACTS Mladic's troops also used forced deportation and various inhumane acts, such as sexual violence, killing, and destruction of houses and cultural monuments and sacred sites, to rid the Serb-controller territories of non-Serbs. This was started in 1992 in what became known as ethnic cleansing.

Entire communities were forcefully displaced and the U.N. Security Council set up so-called safe havens in 1993 to protect those communities from Serb troops. Those included Srebrenica, Zepa , Gorazde and Sarajevo. COUNTS 9 AND 10: TERROR, UNLAWFUL ATTACKS The main focus of this count is on the siege of Sarajevo and the campaign of sniping and shelling to spread terror among the civilian population. Mladic's forces sniped and shelled civilians as they conducted every day civilian activities. People were injured and killed inside their homes. The lack of gas, electricity or running water forced people to leave their homes, where they were targeted. People were also targeted while queuing for water or in the markets. Two mortar attacks on the Markale markets killed more than one hundred people and wounded more than 200. COUNT 11: TAKING OF HOSTAGES This separate count refers to the events in 1995, when Mladic's troops took hostage U.N. peacekeepers in Bosnia to force NATO to prevent attacks on Bosnian Serb positions around Sarajevo.

Between approximately 26 May 1995 and 19 June 1995, Bosnian Serb forces detained over 200 U.N. peacekeepers and military observers in various locations, sending out images of peacekeepers tied to antennas or radars in a warning to NATO. Some of the detainees were assaulted or otherwise maltreated during their captivity. They were released in several stages after an intervention from then-Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic. Reblog Ratko Mladic | Bosnian Serb military leader | Britannica.com Bosnian Serb military leader Sir Michael Rose Ratko Mladić, (born March 12, 1942, Božinovići, Yugoslavia [now in Bosnia and Herzegovina]), Bosnian Serb military leader who commanded the Bosnian Serb army during the Bosnian conflict (1992–95) and who was widely believed to have masterminded the Srebrenica massacre , the worst episode of mass murder within Europe since World War II . Ratko Mladić, 1993.

© Northfoto/Shutterstock.com Mladić was born in an isolated village in Bosnia during World War II. His father, a Partisan leader, was killed in fighting with the Ustaša , the Croatian fascist movement that controlled the government of the Independent State of Croatia (the puppet state created by the invading Axis powers ). Mladić grew up in Josip Broz Tito ’s federated Yugoslavia . After joining the Yugoslav People’s Army, Mladić rose quickly through the officer ranks. When Yugoslavia splintered in 1991, Mladić was sent to Knin, Croatia, where he eventually took command of the Yugoslav army’s 9th Corps against Croatian forces. He was then assigned to Sarajevo to take charge of the army’s Second Military District in May 1992. Only days after Mladić’s arrival in Sarajevo, the assembly of the self-declared autonomous Republika Srpska (Bosnian Serb Republic) appointed him commander of the Bosnian Serb army, which—with a few changes in personnel and nomenclature—the forces of the Second Military District effectively became.

In that capacity, Mladić played a major role in the three-and-a-half-year siege of Sarajevo, during which Bosnian Serb forces rained artillery, mortar, machine-gun, and rifle fire on the terrorized citizenry, indiscriminately killing and wounding thousands. In March 1995 the Bosnian Serb president, Radovan Karadžić , ordered that the military “create an unbearable situation of total insecurity with no hope of further survival or life for the inhabitants of Srebrenica.” Mladić is widely believed to have overseen the subsequent Srebrenica massacre , in which at least 7,000 Bosniak (Bosnian Muslim) men and boys were killed. After the Bosnian conflict, the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) concluded that the killings at Srebrenica , along with the mass expulsion of Bosniak civilians, constituted genocide .

The ICTY charged Mladić with genocide and crimes against humanity, stating that he “was a member of a joint criminal enterprise whose objective was the elimination or permanent removal of Bosnian Muslim, Bosnian Croat, or other non-Serb inhabitants from large areas of [Bosnia and Herzegovina].” Mladić fled to Belgrade , where he lived openly under the protection of Serbian leader Slobodan Milošević . When Milošević (having been indicted in 1999) was extradited to The Hague in 2001, Mladić disappeared. Britannica Stories War crimes fugitive Mladic arrested - World - CBC News War crimes fugitive Mladic arrested Mladic refuses to recognize Hague tribunal's authority, lawyer says The Associated Press Posted: May 26, 2011 6:50 AM ET Last Updated: May 26, 2011 10:01 PM ET In this Dec. 2, 1995, photo, Bosnian Serb army commander Gen. Ratko Mladic addresses his troops in the eastern Bosnian town of Vlasenica.

(Oleg Stjepanovic/Associated Press) B-92 (English site) (Note: CBC does not endorse and is not responsible for the content of external links.) Europe's most-wanted war crimes fugitive — Ratko Mladic, who is wanted for the alleged massacre of thousands of Muslim men and boys — has been arrested in Serbia after years in hiding. Serbian President Boris Tadic confirmed the arrest Thursday. "Today, we close one chapter of our recent history that will bring us one step closer to full reconciliation in the region," he said during a news conference in Belgrade. "All crimes have to be fully investigated, and all war criminals must face justice." Mladic is alleged to have led the forces that attacked the Bosnian town of Srebrenica, a UN-declared safe area, in the summer of 1995. In early July that year, more than 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys were executed by Serbian forces, and the town's women and children were driven out of the area. Ratko Mladic, in baseball cap, enters court in Belgrade, Thursday.

((Serbian government/Associated Press)) Just hours before the massacre, Mladic handed out candy to Muslim children in the town's square, assuring them everything would be fine and patting one child on the head. Then the shootings began and the bodies of the victims were bulldozed into mass graves. Since the massacre, the bodies of thousands of the victims have been recovered, identified through DNA tests and laid to rest. Mladic has been on the run since 1995, when he was indicted by the UN war crimes tribunal in The Hague. Prosecutors had complained that Serbia was not doing enough to bring Mladic to justice. Tadic stressed that the arrest was the result of full co-operation of Serbia with the Hague tribunal. Mladic, 69, faces life imprisonment if tried and convicted of genocide and other charges. Frail appearance Mladic appeared Thursday evening at a closed session in a Belgrade court, looking frail and walking very slowly as he was escorted by four guards in the first step of the extradition process. He wore a navy-blue jacket and a baseball hat with grey hair sticking out the sides, and carried what appeared to be a towel in his left hand.

Mladic, Karadzic may be tried together The arrest of Ratko Mladic could become a factor in the UN trial of Radovan Karadzic, the alleged mastermind of Bosnian Serb atrocities during the 1992-95 war, Karadzic's defence lawyer says. Attorney Peter Robinson said that Karadzic's trial in The Hague is only about 20 per cent completed. He said judges may decide to try Mladic and Karadzic together. Robinson told The Associated Press on Thursday that Karadzic's defence team must decide whether to continue the trial or to seek a halt and work with Mladic's defence team. Karadzic was captured nearly three years ago, in disguise on a bus in Belgrade, the Serbian capital. The former Bosnian Serb leader is the highest-profile figure brought before the Yugoslav war crimes tribunal since former president Slobodan Milosevic, who died before his trial ended. 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 asserts that he will not answer to the authority of the U.N. 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 recognize The Hague tribunal," Saljic said. Mladic's arrest removed the most important barrier to the Western-leaning Serbian government's efforts to join the European Union and to rehabilitate the country's image as a pariah state that sheltered the men responsible for the worst atrocities of the Balkan wars of the 1990s. Mladic had two pistols when he was arrested but offered no resistance, and he appeared shrunken and pale, Serbian officials and media said. Serbia raised its national security level and banned all gatherings after nationalist groups pledged to pour into the streets in protest. Mladic hiding at home of relatives Prosecutors have said they believed Mladic had been hiding in Serbia under the protection of hardliners who consider him a hero.

Belgrade's media said Mladic was arrested Thursday in Lazarevo, a village some 100 kilometres northeast of Belgrade close to the northern Serbian town of Zrenjanin. Belgrade's B-92 radio said Mladic was not in disguise when arrested, unlike wartime Bosnian Serb president Radovan Karadzic who was arrested in Belgrade in 2008 disguised as a New Age guru, with long white hair and a beard. Bosnian Muslim Hatidza Mehmedovic gestures near the gravestone of her relative, victim of the Srebrenica massacre, at the Potocari memorial centre near Srebrenica, Bosnia, on Thursday. ((Amel Emric/Associated Press)) Rasim Ljajic, a government minister in charge of co-operation with the UN tribunal, said "Mladic looked like an old man" when he was arrested. He had lost all of his hair. "One could pass by him without recognizing him," Ljajic said. "He was pale, which could mean he rarely ventured out of the house, a probable reason why he went unnoticed," he said.

Ljajic said said Mladic had two handguns in his possession, but did not resist the arrest and "was co-operative." Belgrade B-92 radio said one of Mladic's arms was paralyzed, probably the result of a stroke. Serbian state TV said Mladic was bald and appeared "worn out." Local media reported he had been living under the name Milorad Komadic. World's most wanted Osama bin Laden was killed. Gen. Ratko Mladic was captured. That's two of the world's most-wanted off the list. So who's left ? Omar al-Bashir: The president of Sudan. Wanted for crimes allegedly committed in Darfur. Ali Kushayb: A commander of the Sudanese government-backed janjaweed militia. Wanted for war crimes. Joseph Kony: The leader of the brutal rebel group the Lord's Resistance Army, which is known for vicious attacks against civilians in Uganda. Jean Bosco Ntaganda: Congolese warlord wanted for war crimes including an ethnic massacre in 2002 and forcing children to fight.

Ayman al-Zawahri: Al-Qaeda deputy indicted for his alleged role in the 1988 bombings of the U.S. embassies in Tanzania and Kenya. Anwar al-Awlaki: The U.S.-born cleric is one of al-Qaeda's most prominent English-language radicals. Adam Yahiye Gadahn: Indicted in California for treason and support to al-Qaeda. Fahd Mohammed Ahmed al-Quso: U.S. indictment for his alleged role in the 2000 bombings of the USS Cole in Yemen. Thought to be in Yemen. Jamel Ahmed Mohammed Ali-Badawi: Wanted in connection with the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole in Yemen. Escaped Yemeni custody in 2006. Tadic said the process to extradite Mladic to the tribunal in The Hague is underway. Justice officials said it will take at least a week before he is handed over. The Serbian president also vowed to do everything to arrest another fugitive, Goran Hadzic, and deliver him to the war crimes tribunal. Tadic said it was "crystal clear" that Hadzic can't hide forever.

Croatian media broke the news of the arrest of Mladic. They reported that Croatian police were told by their Serbian counterparts that DNA analysis confirmed the fugitive's identity. Belgrade's B92 radio said Mladic was detained earlier Thursday in a village near the northern Serbian town of Zrenjanin. In Bosnia, the head of a group of of victims' family members formed to keep the pressure on war crimes investigators to find the bodies and to arrest the perpetrators, welcomed the arrest. But, added Munira Subasic, "I'm sorry for all the victims who are dead and cannot see this day." War crimes tribunal judge Fouad Riad said during Mladic's 1995 indictment in absentia that the court had seen evidence of "unimaginable savagery: thousands of men executed and buried in mass graves, hundreds of men buried alive, men and women mutilated and slaughtered, children killed before their mothers' eyes, a grandfather forced to eat the liver of his own grandson." "These are truly scenes from hell, written on the darkest pages of human history," he said.

But even as Balkan war-crimes fugitives such as Karadzic and Slobodan Milosevic were brought to The Hague, Mladic was idolized and sheltered by ultranationalists and ordinary Serbs despite a 10 million euro ($14 million) Serbian government bounty, plus $5 million offered by the U.S. State Department. He was known to have made daring forays into Belgrade to watch soccer games and feast on fish at an elite restaurant. In a particularly brazen touch, he had been using the alias Milorad Komadic, an anagram of his true identity, police said. Supporters of Ratko Mladic chant songs and wave Serbian flags at a protest against Mladic's arrest in central Belgrade, Thursday. ((Marko Drobnjakovic/Associated Press) ) Before sunrise, agents of Serbia's domestic intelligence agency moved quietly on Mladic's hideout, a single-story yellow brick house owned by a relative of the fugitive's mother, said Radmilo Stanisic, the de facto mayor of Lazarevo, a village of some 2,000 residents about 100 kilometres northeast of Belgrade.

"They didn't even wake us up," said a resident who identified himself only as Zoran. "I'm furious. They arrested our hero." The nationalist Serbian Radical Party said Mladic was a "hero" and described his seizure as "one of the hardest moments in Serbian history." The extreme-right group 1389 said the arrest was "a treason" and called on citizens to pour into the streets and protest. Ratko Mladic war crime defence begins - BBC News BBC News Ratko Mladic war crime defence begins 19 May 2014 Read more about sharing. Close share panel Media captionRatko Mladic's first defence witness focused on the question of snipers in Sarajevo, as the BBC's Anna Holligan reports The defence in the trial of former Bosnian Serb army chief Ratko Mladic on charges of genocide and crimes against humanity has opened in The Hague. The first witness, a former Serb army officer, says he was never ordered to fire on civilians in the besieged Bosnian capital of Sarajevo. Mr Mladic, 72, is one of the most high-profile suspects to appear before the tribunal in The Hague.

Mr Mladic denies 11 charges dating to the 1992-95 Bosnian war. Mile Sladoje, a former assistant commander of a Serb battalion in Sarajevo, was the first witness called by Mr Mladic on Monday. In a summary of his testimony read at the hearing, he denies ever being ordered by Mr Mladic to target civilians in a sniping campaign during the three-year siege of the city in which approximately 10,000 people were killed - most of them Muslims. "All our activities [in Sarajevo] were defence activities... There were standing orders, fire could only be returned in response to enemy fire," he said. "I know nobody gave orders to shoot civilians." In court: Anna Holligan, BBC News, The Hague Ratko Mladic is famous for his animated appearances. As the judge entered courtroom one, the ageing patriot stood, bowed his head and gave a slow salute. He then placed both hands on his heart and closed his eyes, followed by a quick glance through the bullet-proof glass, perhaps to make sure the journalists were taking note. Two decades ago, he was a bolshie general, parading the battlefield in army fatigues.

Today, he struggles to stand and grasp a thick, plastic-coated pen to make notes, his muscles still suffering from the effect of a series of strokes. But his character remains intact. As Mile Sladoje told the court, their battalion did not have the "optical-sight" rifles that the prosecution claims were used by Serb snipers in Sarajevo, Mr Mladic nodded in earnest agreement. He enjoys engaging with the audience. At 72, he has already outlived his superior, former Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic, who died of a heart attack aged 64 while on trial in The Hague. A few months ago, Mr Mladic forgot his false teeth, and the trial was temporarily adjourned. With at least two years to go, survivors hope his health does not deteriorate further. 'Satanic' Ratko Mladic's forces are accused of conducting a prolonged campaign of shelling and sniping, designed to kill and spread terror among the civilians of Sarajevo.

Mr Mladic is specifically accused of a role in the massacre of more than 7,000 Bosniak men and boys at Srebrenica - Europe's worst atrocity since World War II. Image copyright AFP Image caption Ratko Mladic and Radovan Karadzic in Pale in 1993. Both men are accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity Image copyright AFP Image caption The Srebrenica massacre was the worst atrocity in Europe since the end of WW2 Mr Mladic has denounced the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) tribunal as "satanic". The defence argues that Gen Mladic was simply a soldier following orders. His lawyers have described him as a self-proclaimed patriot who fought to defend his people. The defence will also attempt to refute the prosecution's claim that the general led a targeted campaign to ethnically cleanse parts of Bosnia of non-Serbs and make them part of a greater Serbia.

Bosnians are resigned to the prospect of a very bleak future Atka Reid, Writer and graphic designer, Auckland, NZ Bosnian voices: Hopes from abroad But they are expected to point out that Mr Mladic suffers from a memory disorder that makes it hard for him to differentiate between truth and fiction. The BBC's Anna Holligan in The Hague says that although he denies the charges, many survivors consider Ratko Mladic to be one of those most responsible their suffering. Our correspondent says that for them, the trial is a chance to hear the truth and experience some form of justice. The defence has been given 207 hours to present its case, the same amount of time given to the prosecution. There is no limit to the number of witnesses the defence can call. In the Srebrenica enclave, Bosnian Serb forces overran the UN-defended safe area, killing Muslim men and boys in July 1995. Ratko Mladic was the general in charge of the troops. He was on the run for 16 years before being arrested in 2011 in northern Serbia, where he had been living under an assumed name.

Also being tried in The Hague is former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic, who like Mr Mladic is accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity. Mladic trial 3 June 2011: Trial begins.

Mladic says charges are "monstrous" and "obnoxious" October 2011: Mladic admitted to Dutch hospital and in November found not to be in a condition to follow the trial (first of many suspensions over his health) 17 May 2012: Trial adjourned due to prosecution "errors" 18 June 2012: Trial suspended until further notice 9 July 2012: First witness heard 10 April 2013: Mladic removed from court after muttering during testimony of Srebrenica survivor 19 May 2014: Defence in trial begins UN court sentences Srebrenica commander to life for genocide | News | Expatica the Netherlands UN court sentences Srebrenica commander to life for genocide 12th December 2012, 0 comments The UN's Yugoslav war crimes court found Bosnian Serb general Zdravko Tolimir guilty of genocide for his role in the 1995 Srebrenica massacre, Europe's worst atrocity since World War II, and sentenced him to life in jail.

"The majority of the court finds you guilty" of crimes including genocide, judge Christoph Flugge told the Hague-based International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. "Zdravko Tolimir, you are hereby sentenced to life imprisonment," the judge then told the gaunt former commander Wednesday, who crossed himself three times before the verdict was handed down. After the sentencing, commotion ensued when members of a Srebrenica victims' organisation confronted Tolimir's relatives outside the courtroom, screaming: "May God let you cry -- I have never found my youngest child." The majority of the court's judges agreed with prosecutors who had asked for a life sentence, saying Tolimir, now 64, was involved in "massive" crimes committed at the Srebrenica and Zepa enclaves in July 1995. They said they were "of a massive scale, severe in (their) intensity and devastating in (their) effect." "The suffering of the women, children and elderly who were forcibly transferred from the Srebrenica and Zepa enclaves rises to the level of serious bodily or mental harm so as also to amount to genocide," the judges added.

Judges said Tolimir -- described as the "right-hand man and eyes and ears of (Bosnian Serb army commander) Ratko Mladic," -- who is also being tried by the court -- had overseen Bosnian Serb army officers conducting the slaughter of at least 6,000 Muslim men and boys at Srebrenica. Judges highlighted a number of incidents during the massacres including at a warehouse a few kilometres from Srebrenica, where about 1,000 Muslim men and boys were taken after being captured by Bosnian Serb forces. When the warehouse was full, Serb soldiers opened fire with machine guns and tossed hand grenades. "They fired for hours," only now and then pausing for a break, the judge said.

In another instance, a six-year-old Muslim boy survived an execution and stood up to ask Bosnian Serb soldiers "where his father was." Conducting his own defence, Tolimir said that what happened at Srebrenica in eastern Bosnia in July 1995 amounted to "fighting against terrorist groups", rather than the murder of Muslim men and boys after Dutch peacekeepers at the "safe" enclave were overrun by Mladic's forces. Tolimir, said Judge Flugge, "had full knowledge of the despicable criminal operations and himself furthered their goals," in this brutal episode in the Balkans country's bloody 1992-95 war that claimed 100,000 lives and left 2.2 million others homeless. Apart from genocide, Tolimir was found guilty on six other counts including extermination, murder, persecution and forcible transfer. Judges said prosecutors did not prove a count of deportation beyond reasonable doubt in relation to the attacks on Srebrenica and Zepa.

During his trial prosecutors said the former intelligence chief was part of a grand scheme to murder thousands of Muslim men and boys and expel thousands of woman and children from the enclave in order to create a "mono-ethnic Serb state." The prosecution also alleged that about 25,000 women, children and elderly people were forcibly transferred from the enclaves to Muslim-controlled territories, while thousands of men and boys old enough to bear arms were executed and dumped in mass graves. Tolimir was involved in a "joint criminal enterprise" to "summarily execute and bury thousands of Bosnian Muslim men and boys aged 16 to 60 captured from the Srebrenica enclave," according to the charge sheet. During the trial, prosecutors said Mladic relied on Tolimir to "carry out the slow strangling of the Srebrenica and Zepa enclaves" to create conditions which would force the Muslim population "to give up hope of survival." Tolimir is the most senior Serb to have a verdict handed down by the UN war crimes court since two Croatian generals and two former Kosovar guerrillas were acquitted last month, sparking Serbia's ire.

In 2004, Radislav Krstic became the highest-ranking Bosnian Serb officer to be sentenced on appeal to 35 years in jail for his role in the Srebrenica massacre. Arrested in May 2007 in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Tolimir had seen his trial delayed several times due to ill health. Mladic, also dubbed "the Butcher of Bosnia," was arrested in Serbia last year, and now faces 11 counts before the same Hague-based court, including for the Srebrenica massacre. © 2012 AFP Bosnia's Butcher in Court: Ratko Mladic Stands Trial for War Crimes - TIME Bosnia's Butcher in Court: Ratko Mladic Stands Trial for War Crimes By Leo Cendrowicz Wednesday, May 16, 2012 Send to Kindle TOUSSAINT KLUITERS / AFP / Getty Images Former Bosnian Serb army chief Ratko Mladic arrives on May 16, 2012 at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague before the opening of his war crimes trial.

Mladic faces 11 counts including genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity for his role in the Bosnian war, in particular the 1995 Srebrenica massacre. Related Follow @TIME Jauntily applauding his war crimes judges and giving them a thumbs up, Ratko Mladic showed he had lost none of the swagger of the soldier who stands accused of masterminding Europe's most horrific killing spree in modern times. Nor did the man once dubbed the "Butcher of Bosnia" and the "Beast of the Balkans" show any remorse: catching the eye of a woman in the audience  a survivor of the massacre he is accused of ordering in Srebrenica  Mladic ran his hand across his throat. The throat-cutting gesture prompted presiding judge Alphons Orie to hold a brief recess and order an end to "inappropriate interactions." This was just the first day of Mladic's trial at the United Nations war crimes tribunal in The Hague.

Mladic, who led the Bosnian Serbian army during the 1992-95 war in Bosnia, is charged with 11 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity, including the massacre of 8,000 Muslim men and boys at Srebrenica in 1995. Now nearly 70, he spent 15 years on the run in Serbia before being captured by Serb special forces last May. He is also charged with orchestrating the 44-month siege of Bosnia's capital Sarajevo, during which an estimated 12,000 people died. (PHOTOS: 20 Years Later: The Bosnian Conflict in Photographs) Prosecutors have 200 hours to make their case, which is to include testimony from 411 witnesses. They aim to show that Mladic was not a mere follower of orders but rather a director and organizer of mass slaughters during the Bosnian war. Prosecutor Dermot Groome said Wednesday that Mladic and other Bosnian Serbs implemented a common plan to exterminate non-Serbs. "The prosecution will present evidence that will show beyond a reasonable doubt the hand of Mr.

Mladic in each of these crimes," he said. Groome added that by the time Mladic and his troops had "murdered thousands in Srebrenica," they were "well-rehearsed in the craft of murder." Srebrenica is one of the best-documented atrocities in modern history: there was real-time satellite surveillance of the killings, as well as film and video taken by the perpetrators, including Mladic himself. Mladic issued his orders through a military radio system, not bothering to scramble his words, and they were recorded and broadcast on television news programs across the country the next day. Srebrenica was part of Mladic's grand plan to rid Bosnian lands of Bosnian Muslims, Croats and other non-Serbs to create a Greater Serbia. Some 8,000 Bosnian Muslims were executed in cold blood in the city from July 11-22, 1995, after his soldiers forced 400 Dutch U.N. peacekeepers to flee the city and the civilians they were protecting. Babies' throats were slit and girls as young as 12 were mercilessly gang raped.

"Mladic embodied the worst of the war," says Laura Silber, co-author of the book The Death of Yugoslavia and now the director of public affairs for the Open Society Foundations, a civil rights institute. "I saw the adulation he received from his soldiers  they saw him as a true hero. But this man was a monster." (MORE:The Lessons of Bosnia) Mladic was the military chief of Radovan Karadzic, the wartime Bosnian Serb President, who is currently being tried in a neighboring courtroom at the war crimes tribunal on identical charges of masterminding Serb atrocities. Mladic has said through his lawyer that he does not recognize the special U.N. court, the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, which could sentence him to life in prison. His lawyers have also said he was too ill to sit through the trial, but this was seen as a delaying tactic. Nonetheless, Serge Brammertz, the chief prosecutor of the court, will be anxious to make sure that Mladic doesn't follow the fate of the tribunal's most important defendant, Slobodan Milosevic, the former Serbian President, who he died in his cell in 2006 before a verdict was reached.

The sight of the Butcher of Bosnia in the dock is expected to have a huge impact in the former Yugoslavia. For the Bosnians who suffered so much during the war, justice is finally, if belatedly being served. Some 25 members of the Mothers of Srebrenica group  woman and children who lost male relatives during the massacre  demonstrated against Mladic outside the court, offering poignant stories from a most brutal era. "I hope that many of those who are disillusioned and believe that Mladic is a Serb hero will change their minds, and that the trial will demonstrate that he was just a criminal and a coward," Fikret Grabovica, president of an association of parents and children killed in the siege of Sarajevo, told Reuters. For Serbs, many of whom still revere Mladic as the nation's fearless protector, the trial could be a way of coming to terms with the country's recent past. "The trial has the potential to be an inflection point for Serbia as it turns toward Europe," says Damon Wilson, a former NATO and U.S. State Department official in the Balkans who now serves as executive vice president of the Atlantic Council, a Washington think tank.

"But if it is a catharsis, it will be over a long time. The impact will be cumulative. It is the beginning of a process to reach closure. The important point is to set the record straight through a long painful process of historical reconciliation." (MORE: Syria: Is This an Arab Spring or a Balkan Winter?) Serbia is taking tentative steps to heal the wounds of war after being accused of sheltering Mladic for years by the West. In the past couple of years, Serbia's parliament has apologized for Srebrenica and President Boris Tadic has pushed the government to track down Mladic, who was finally captured in a farmhouse in northern Serbia. For Tadic, a pro-reform leader elected in 2004, these steps were necessary to bring his country into the wider European family after years of being an international pariah. Tadic, who faces a presidential runoff election on Sunday, has also helped consolidate Serbia's democracy, rebuild its economy and reach out to its neighbors. The country is now on the track to European Union membership  something that would have been unthinkable a decade ago.

"The trial is a moment when people in Serbia can see what was done in their name, the evil that was perpetrated," says Ivan Vejvoda, vice president for programs at the German Marshall Fund, a U.S. public policy group. He says, though, that there is still a residual sense of denial in Serbia about the past and it will take time for the trial's effects to percolate down to everyday people. "I was an aide to former Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic, who delivered Milosevic to The Hague. But he was assassinated for it in 2003. He paid the ultimate price." Mladic's trial is one of the last chapters of the bloody Bosnian story. Fidgeting in his seat at times on Wednesday, he seemed to scorn the entire process. But for all his brash theatrics, he was a very diminished figure  a man who's time had finally caught up to him.

Question: Name the Bosnian Serb army commander tried at The Hague in 2012 for war crimes against Bosnia 1992-95?
Answer: Ratko Mladic