Brammertz: Ready for Mladic trial

While Ratko Mladic is doing his best in Belgrade to delay his transfer to The Hague, the Yugoslavia war crimes Tribunal in The Hague is gearing up for the arrival of its number one fugitive. The former military leader of the Bosnian Serbs faces charges of genocide and crimes that span the entire Bosnian War of the ‘90’s.
By Lauren Comiteau in The Hague.

The satellite vans are already setting up camp outside the Tribunal, waiting for the arrival of General Ratko Mladic. After 16 years on the run, his arrest Thursday was welcomed by Chief prosecutor Serge Brammertz. He says his office is ready for trial.
“The crimes allegedly committed by Mladic have already been prosecuted several times already at this Tribunal. There have been several officers, generals who worked under the authority of Mladic who have already been convicted with very important sentences,” said Brammertz. “So we are quite comfortable that the evidence available to us is quite convincing and we hope will convince a judge,” he added.
Evidence
That evidence includes the eye-witness testimony of survivors, Ratko Mladic’s own war crimes diaries, video and audio of the General on the battlefield saying he’s come to take revenge on the Turks, and the many Bosnian Serb Army insiders who testified that General Mladic was the commander giving the orders. He is accused of genocide and crimes against humanity including ethnic cleansing in Bosnia, the siege of Sarajevo, taking UN peacekeepers hostage, and most infamously, the 1995 genocide in Srebrenica, when more than 7,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys were killed over the course of 5 days. In addition to genocide, Mladic has been charged with persecution, murder, deportation and inflicting terror.
Karadzic
Ratko Mladic was indicted in 1995 together with Radovan Karadzic. Prosecutors initially wanted both men to face trial together but split the case shortly before Karadzic's trial started.
Brammertz said it was too early to tell whether the Mladic and Karadzic cases would be re-joined, but if so, this would delay the trial of Karadzic. He also said it was too soon to say whether the indictment will be amended.
“It is too early to take a decision in this regard. It is clear that our preferred option would of course be to go for the full indictment as it is today,” said Brammertz. “We will have to see, based on a number of factors, if this is the indictment which will at the end of the day be the one used or if there would be the need to amend it again. But it is really too early, we will have to see the development in the coming days,” he said.

New chapter
The General has already been declared fit for transfer to The Hague by a judge in Serbia. His lawyers say he’s ill and have appealed against that decision. But once Mladic does arrive in The Hague, he will be taken to the Tribunal’s detention unit and given a medical exam. Within days he’ll face judges for his initial appearance—where he’ll have to enter a plea of guilty or not guilty to the 11 counts against him.

Prosecutors had long maintained that Mladic was hiding in Serbia. In announcing the General’s arrest on Thursday, Serbian President Boris Tadic said one chapter in the country’s recent history is closed. For Mladic, a new chapter—and what many believe will be his last—begins in The Hague any day now.