Ratko Mladic arrested: Bosnia war crimes suspect held

Ratko Mladic, wanted by UN prosecutors for war crimes during the Bosnian civil war, has been arrested in Serbia after a decade in hiding.

Serbian President Boris Tadic confirmed the arrest of the former Bosnian Serb army chief at a news conference.

Gen Mladic is accused of a key role in the massacre of at least 7,500 men and boys at Srebrenica in 1995.

He was the most prominent Bosnian war crimes suspect at large since the arrest of Radovan Karadzic in 2008.

President Tadic said work was under way to extradite Gen Mladic to the international war crimes tribunal in The Hague.
The detention, he said, had closed one chapter in Serbian history, bringing the country and the region closer to reconciliation.

It had also opened the doors to membership of the European Union, he added.

Nato chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen hailed the arrest, saying it finally offered "a chance for justice to be done".