Posted on 02/21/2006 3:25:30 PM PST by presidio9
Gen. Ratko Mladic, the fugitive Bosnian Serb commander accused of orchestrating Europe's worst massacre of civilians since World War II, has been located in Serbia and authorities are negotiating his surrender, security officials said Tuesday.
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Mladic, considered the most ruthless commander of the Balkan wars of the 1990s, "has not yet been arrested," one official who is close to the operation to find Mladic told The Associated Press. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not entitled to speak to the media.
Another security official, also demanding anonymity because of the sensitivity of the information and fears of jeopardizing negotiations, confirmed that Mladic's "hiding place has been discovered in recent days."
Both officials refused to specify the exact whereabouts of Mladic's hideout, but the private Beta news agency said the former commander was found on Cer Mountain, some 60 miles west of Belgrade on the border with Bosnia. Beta did not cite its source.
Earlier, the Belgrade-based agency reported that "an operation was in progress to locate" Mladic. It also did not name the source of that information.
Chief U.N. war crimes prosecutor Carla Del Ponte repeatedly has said Mladic is in Serbia and "in the immediate reach of the authorities."
"We have said for the last 10 days that the arrest could take place very quickly," her spokeswoman, Florence Hartmann, said in The Hague, Netherlands.
Serbia is under intense pressure from the European Union and the U.S. to capture Mladic, charged by the war crimes tribunal with genocide for allegedly ordering the massacre of 8,000 Muslim boys and men in Srebrenica and for the 1992-95 siege of the Bosnian capital, Sarajevo.
State news agency Tanjug, quoting Bosnian Serb BN television, earlier reported that the 62-year-old Mladic had been arrested and was "being transported" to the U.S.-run air force base in Tuzla, eastern Bosnia. Mladic was to be flown to the U.N. war crimes tribunal in The Hague, the report said.
But Srdjan Djuric, spokesman for Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica, told the AP in a statement that Mladic had not been arrested. He called the Tanjug report a "manipulation" meant to derail the government's efforts to detain him.
The contradicting reports on Mladic started with Kostunica's senior aide, Vladeta Jankovic, predicting earlier Tuesday that Mladic's arrest was imminent.
"Those who are searching have all means and are in full swing" in efforts to capture Mladic, Jankovic said. He said the government wanted to persuade Mladic to surrender.
"This problem has to be solved, and it will be solved in the shortest possible period," he said.
However, Jankovic said he had no information on whether Mladic's hiding place had been located or whether the government was involved in any negotiations for his surrender.
The conflicting reports caused confusion in Belgrade. There have been numerous incorrect reports in the past that Mladic had been located or captured.
Serbia, seeking to establish closer ties with the European Union and NATO, faces renewed international isolation if it fails to extradite Mladic to the U.N. tribunal in The Hague.
EU officials had given Serbia until the end of February — in a week — to hand Mladic over to The Hague and threatened to freeze EU membership talks otherwise.
Hartmann and officials at the EU and NATO said Tuesday they had no information about Mladic's reported arrest.
In Washington, State Department spokesman Adam Ereli said he was not aware Mladic had been arrested or detained.
Mladic, who was head of the Bosnian Serb army during the war, is No. 2 on the tribunal's most-wanted list after Radovan Karadzic, the Bosnian Serb leader who remains at large. Mladic went into hiding in 2002 after Slobodan Milosevic was ousted as president in 2000.
The State Department has offered $5 million for the capture of Mladic, who was known to have made forays into Belgrade even as recently as a few years ago to dine and to watch soccer games.
Under an indictment last amended in October 2002, the U.N. war crimes tribunal charged the general with 15 counts of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity in 1992-95. If convicted, Mladic faces life imprisonment, the tribunal's maximum punishment. The U.N. court has no death penalty.
An estimated 200,000 people died during the Bosnian war and half the country's prewar population of 4 million were displaced.
They have been trying Milosovic for about 6 years now, How long will it take to send this guy away?
I always wondered about this "negotiating surrender" business. What ever happened to "hands up or I'll shoot!"?
...Mladic, charged by the war crimes tribunal with genocide for allegedly ordering the massacre of 8,000 Muslim boys and men in Srebrenica...
Not to play the moral equivalence card, but when are we going to round up the muslims responsible for killing the 60,000 Christians in Darfur?
Tough to do that to a small army of bodyguards who a better armed than the average cop.
>Not to play the moral equivalence card, but when are we going to round up the muslims responsible for killing the 60,000 Christians in Darfur?
NEVER.
I wonder how many of the 8,000 would have become terrorists.
The Serbs were the only ones willing to take on the scummuzzis on thier own terms, and they are called war criminals.
These guys need put in charge of a really, really, big army and set loose in the ME.
That is because they are not dead at all.
The left's wet dream.
Bomb Christian women and children.
They did it in spades.
These supposed war criminals are champions of Western Civilization.
Only this time in Iraq or maybe among some of the thousands of so-called bosnian "refugees" clinton had brought to the USA.
Maybe they are just bidding their time till their master, that Bosnian passport holder named Bin Laden calls them into his "service".
For the sake of a bunch of islamic terrorists called the KLA.
What a dern shame!!!
And now it's the same stupid BS afterwards trying to spin this latest bunch of war criminals into something they weren't.
To put it bluntly, the Serbs were just as happy killing Christians ('ustashe' 40 years after the fact) and blowing up their churches as they are killing Muslims ('turks' 100+ years after the fact) and blowing up their Mosques.
Mladic got his start ethnically cleansing a Croatian village named Kijevo in August of 1991, and didn't scruple to differentiate between Christian and Muslim when he went to work in Bosnia. If you weren't a Serb, and you fell into Ratko's clutches, you had a death sentence. If you were lucky, you got away with your life, after buying your freedom with your worldly belongings.
"Champions of Western Civilization"?
Contemptible ignorance.
Hey Hoopie, you got your wish!
It won't be long before the Serb Army returns to Kosovo!
And I see your still trying to peddle that lie about the Christian Serbs wrecking Churches!
Go ahead, post that nonsense that shows the actions of all the Communists and try to blame it on the Serbs.
Because you know it was the scum that you support that have burned hundreds of Christian Churches in Kosovo. And the Christian world took note!
It's gonna get really ugly to be you 'round here. LOL!
Are you the poster that hit abuse on Destro?
However, if you're jonesing for your daily dose of Destro, you can find him out in the wastelands, still espousing his idiosyncratic brand of whatever.
Certain jihad maggots will do anything to destroy those who would dare resist them.
And you've just identified one of them.
Otherwise known as "The Truth That the Jihadist Scum Sweat Over!"
Glad to help hoopie make that correction! Fixed it for ya, rooster.
Or better yet, send Hoplite! His National Guard experience as a pancake cook certainly qualifies him!
HAHHAHA!! I would have thought Clark's boy would have at least been a PASTRY chef!!
Remember the video showing the execution of 6 Muslims? They used that to "prove" that 8,000 were killed in Srebrenitsa. The six men were from a village near Sarajevo, some 130km west of Srebrenitsa.
Then, they had another video of an exhumation (supposedly in the vicinity of Srebrenitsa). There was a shallow grave with some human remains. 10 bodies, not more. Again - "proof" that 8,000 were killed in Srebrenitsa.
It's been 11 years. Where are the bodies?
This is a sampling of the regional populace reactionary feel if it did happen by the Tadic Govt. What this means is they will get him very soon. His popularity is running out of air, hot air, and he will soon be brought in to justice. He did committ crimes, but not enough to warrant the ICTY and the witchhunt that is ongoing for him.
Thanks Hoplite! I hardly ever look at the FR-lite boards and didn't know he was there. Just from the link, he does seem a bit more... ah... unconstrained there!
I know we have a difference in opinion Hoplite but I still admire your research, links and your ability to take the over the top abuse and still keep posting.
So you are a flaming support of the men who ordered to 'shoot only on human flesh' ?
Some of his snipers took the head of little girls of while their mother stood next to them...
I think this gentlemen should be hanged by the balls - with all respect to your attitude that a good genocide once in a while might be a fun thing to watch.
And he is a far better man than you are, by any accounts. - Except perhaps a good Muslim's.
where did you see this? did you actually "see" that happen?
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thank you.
Admin:
This posting is a first class abuse.
Please remove and take measure to ensure that it does not occur again.
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thank you.
well - he will get a nice trial and if he is innocent he will be released.
And I didn't see it happening neither did I see 9/11 happening.
But you have so much stuff like tons of photograph - correspondents reports, videos from sniper positions shooting at little kids and laughing - ugly stuff and more then I can take as to be faked.
But no, I am not an eye whitness.
Do I need to be an eye whitness to believe that this guy is an animal ?
Just get used to it. He was a butcher living out his hate and sadism in more then one nationalistic war.
He didn't fight Al Qaida - he slaughtert what was in his way to inflict terror.
There is no way his attrocities are anything short of attempted genocide.
But as I said - there will be a proper trial - thanks to the good work of carla del ponte.
whats wrong with you - you revealed your name to me - it's public...
if you can't handle posting here you better don't do it.
And talking of insults - just look up one posting...
People like to divide the human race up, white black Muslim Jew Christan.
After service in North Ireland, Africa and the Balkans I too like to divide the human race up.
Those who like killing and get a sick twisted perverted kick from it and the rest of us.
There are those who say well they were Muslims they deserved to die, I have heard that many times
Its ok to rape and kill because they are not of our faith how are they different to those Muslims who think that way.
One thing I know what we say what we do what we think we will one day be called to account for all of us.
I guess they needed to be there to really understand what was going on.
I don't envy you for your job...
Thanks for doing it anyhow.
I never bet on Islam. I know there were Serb atrocities but the way we sided with the Muslims was a crime. Ratko Mladic should be running the UN. Kick Kofi out and put in Ratso
After all your posts all these years I must say you are a clueless idiot when it comes to Islam. You don't see a clash of civilizations but I do. Islam is unlike any other religion we have these days. I used to defer to you because you are military, but no more. You could slip on a suit and be very happy at EU HQ as an apparatchik
I think you are missing some details about this guy ... he was just to stupid or unfortunate - otherwise he would be lined up together with Mao, Stalin, Hitler and Ghengis Khan in the history books.
The UN made disaterous mistakes on the balkans and I bet some parts of it are corrupt - certainly it's not half as efficient as it should be. But we didn't side with muslims.
We just prevented 1 Million people to be burried in Kosovo. I can't tell you how many of them innocent but clearly more then just half of them.
maybe his attitude formed because he was there doing something and getting hands on informations rather then sitting in his armchair and demanding a world-religion to be wiped out.
Don't do that.
k
Total hysterical lie from you. How many deaths do you attribute to Milosovic compared to the others?
You can thank General Ratko Mladic for that.
At the beginning we tried to have a even handed approach to all the side in what was a multi sided civil war.
It was the massacre and it was a massacre that opinion really went anti Serb and the US gave support to the Croatian operation that finally defeated the Bosnian Serb Army.
The Serbs were not innocent in Kosovo they carried out acts of brutality as well as the KLA but by then the Serb nation had a bad name for itself.
The break up good have happened a lot better than using the Serb Army and various Serbian paramilitaries to grab as much land as possible from the other provinces
As in all the other Balkan conflicts stretching right back in time there were no real losers or winners in this war just victims, opportunists and monsters on all sides.
Thanks dennisw insults will get you anywhere.
I think you have the apparatchik mentality as you divide the world into four legs good two legs bad.
I prefer to look on people as a whole.
I never trust people who use flowery terms like a clash of civilizations, flowery speech is just that flowery.
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