force Serbia to hand over Mladic

With the trial of the alleged war criminal Radovan Karadžic before the International Criminal Tribunal (ICTY) in The Hague set to resume on 13 April 2010, Society for Threatened Peoples International (STPI) is calling on the international community, in particular the member states of the EU, NATO and the Council of Europe, to force Serbia finally to hand over General Ratko Mladic, likewise perpetrator of genocide, to the Tribunal.

It was Mladic who organised the mass execution of 8373 men and boys at Srebrenica, as commander on the ground allowed it to proceed and personally oversaw the killings. Until 2002 General Mladic, charged with war crimes by the ICTY, was able to move around Belgrade freely despite being actively sought by the Tribunal. During 2003 and 2004 he was accommodated in Army of Serbia and Montenegro quarters. At the time Serbia’s current President Boris Tadic was Minister of Defence and directly responsible for this outrageous state of affairs.

Up until November 2005 Mladic continued to draw his monthly pension payments in Belgrade. Following his retirement from the service of Republika Srpska (the Serb entity of Bosnia and Herzegovina), the indicted war criminal was employed between 1996 and 2002 as an official adviser to the Army of Serbia and Montenegro Crisis Staff.

On 13 April 2010 between 9 am and 5 pm Bosnian survivors of the genocide will be present outside the Tribunal, drawing attention to Serbia’s responsibility to deliver war criminals to the Tribunal and calling for Mladic to be handed over to the Tribunal without further delay, as instructed by the International Court of Justice (ICJ).

For further enquiries contact

Tilman Zülch (STPI President) on tel. ++ 49 /0/151 153 09 888,

Fadila Memisevic (STP Bosnia-Herzegovina/Sarajevo) on tel. 00387 33 213 707, Hatidza Mehmedovic (STP Bosnia-Herzegovina/Srebrenica)on tel. Tel. 00387 61 789 938

Jasna Causevic (STPI’s South-Eastern Europe Officer) is currently at The Hague j.causevic@gfbv.de.