War crimes suspect Mladic faces trial

For long Europe's most wanted man, Mladic, 69, is to appear Friday before a three-judge bench at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in The Hague to plead to 11 counts.

After spending his first night behind bars in a UN detention centre housed in a Dutch jail, the man accused of masterminding Europe's worst massacre since World War II was on Wednesday informed of the date of his initial hearing.

The court ruled the former army chief will appear before it at 10:00 am (0800 GMT) Friday, when the charges will officially be put to him.

Accused of atrocities committed in the 1992-1995 Bosnian war that claimed 100,000 lives, Mladic was arrested in northeast Serbia last Thursday and extradited to The Netherlands on Tuesday.

"For the victims of the crimes alleged against Ratko Mladic, the transfer holds the most significance of all. Sixteen years is a long time to wait for justice," ICTY prosecutor Serge Brammertz said Wednesday.

Mladic is accused of masterminding the 1995 Srebrenica massacre of about 8,000 Muslim men and boys.

He is also charged over the 44-month siege of the capital Sarajevo from May 1992 in which 10,000 people died.

The prosecution has charged Mladic with genocide, persecution, extermination, murder, deportation, inhumane acts and cruel treatment for his alleged part in a plot to achieve the "elimination or permanent removal" of Muslims from large parts of Bosnia in pursuit of a "Greater Serbia".

Serbian judges on Tuesday rejected the ex-general's bid to prevent his extradition on the grounds of ill health, finding he was fit to stand trial.

He was then flown to Rotterdam on a Serb government plane, from where he was taken to The Hague under tight security and spent his first night at the UN detention unit in isolation.

"He was extremely cooperative," ICTY registrar John Hocking said of Mladic's demeanour on arrival. "We had no problem understanding each other."

Bosnia's ambassador to The Netherlands Miranda Sidran Kamisalic, who was also present, said Mladic was dressed in a light grey suit and appeared fit as he shook hands with people there to meet him.

"He really seemed very talkative, his sentences were very articulate."

Brammertz said Wednesday the indictment had been trimmed down from 15 to 11 counts, mirroring that of Mladic's former political chief Radovan Karadzic, on trial since October 2009 for the same crimes.

"Ratko Mladic was the highest-ranking Bosnian Serb military figure during the war in Bosnia and Hercegovina," said the prosecutor. "His crimes left communities broken and a nation torn apart."

Brammertz said the judges have yet to decide whether to try the two cases together, he added.

Karadzic, the former Bosnian Serb political head and Mladic's commander in chief, was arrested in Belgrade in 2008, and the two men were likely to hold talks soon.

"I'm sure they will meet in the coming days," Karadzic's lawyer Peter Robinson told AFP.

ICTY spokeswoman Nerma Jelacic said Mladic was examined by a doctor after he arrived in The Hague, where he will share prison facilities there with wartime subordinates and erstwhile foes -- altogether some 30 key players in the 1990s Balkans wars.

She did not know whether he has already chosen an accredited lawyer from an ICTY list to represent him.

Brammertz hailed Mladic's arrest but said its impact on Belgrade's aspirations for European Union membership remained a political decision.

"It is now for the political level: politicians have to decide what weight to give to the arrest," he said, adding Mladic's capture would not prompt changes to his most recent report to the United Nations Security Council.

The report, which he is due to present officially in New York on Monday, is highly critical of Serbia's cooperation with the tribunal -- a key requirement for Belgrade joining the 27-member European bloc.

"There is no reason for me to change the critical report, but we will recognise that with the arrest, Serbia has fulfilled one of its major obligations. I will present that positively before the UN Security Council," Brammertz said.

He also urged Serbia to arrest the ICTY's last remaining fugitive, the ex-leader of Croatian Serb rebels Goran Hadzic, "without further delay".

Copyright AFP (Agence France-Presse), 2011