Mladic Loses Extradition Appeal

Reuters
Uri Friedman 517 Views May 31, 2011

Former Bosnian Serb general Ratko Mladic's appears to be spending his last days in Serbia, and he's focusing on family. A Belgrade court rejected an appeal against extraditing Mladic to the international war crimes tribunal in The Hague only hours after the appeal was submitted, Reuters explains, making a transfer late today or early tomorrow very likely. Mladic's lawyer had argued that his client--who's accused of committing genocide during the Balkan wars of the early 1990s-- isn't mentally or physically fit to stand trial in the Netherlands.

Mladic, who was arrested last week after a 16-year manhunt, began the day by making a police-escorted visit to his daughter Ana's grave in Belgrade. The New York Times explains that when Ana, a medical student, was found dead in 1994 at the age of 23, authorities concluded that she had killed herself with her father's pistol. Some believed she committed suicide because she was depressed about the role her father had played in the atrocities in the Balkans, the paper explains, while Mladic and his supporters maintained that she was murdered by her father's enemies. At the cemetary, Mladic lit a candle and placed a bouquet of flowers--pictured below--at the grave. The Times cites rumors that Mladic secretly visited the grave while he was hiding, but the AP adds that cameras and 24-hour surveillance at the grave may have dissuaded him from doing so. 

Mladic will meet with his wife and son today after a visit from his grandson and granddaughter on Monday, and has asked repeatedly to visit his mother's grave in Bosnia ever since he was detained. Some relatives of those killed during the 1994 Srebrenica massacre--which Mladic is believed to have orchestrated--were enraged by the news that Serbian authorities permitted Mladic to visit Ana's grave. "I am still searching for my children for the past 16 years," Kadira Gabeljic, who also lost her husband in Srebrenica, told the AP.

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