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Ratko Mladic appears in court in Belgrade
Ratko Mladic has appeared in a Serbian court hours after being arrested following 16 years on the run.
Authorities want to extradite the former Bosnian Serb army chief to the war crimes tribunal in The Hague.He faces accusations including a genocide charge over the killing of about 7,500 Bosnian Muslim men and boys at Srebrenica in 1995.
The hearing was halted pending a medical examination, his lawyers said. Court officials believe he will appeal.
The whole process is expected to take a week.
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It is hard to overstate the importance of this arrest here in Serbia. Many people feel the destiny of their country was held hostage by Ratko Mladic. Their hopes of joining the EU were ruled out by Brussels while Mladic was at large.
I asked President Tadic if it was a coincidence that he was arrested while the EU was considering Serbia's bid to join the bloc. He said the country had never calculated its search for Mladic - it was always determined to catch him.
There is still an ultra-nationalist fringe here who see Mladic as a hero - they say he only ever defended Serb interests. But the new, emerging generation in Serbia seem to be tired of the past and its wars - they want to leave that behind and move forward to the future.
Analysis
I asked President Tadic if it was a coincidence that he was arrested while the EU was considering Serbia's bid to join the bloc. He said the country had never calculated its search for Mladic - it was always determined to catch him.
There is still an ultra-nationalist fringe here who see Mladic as a hero - they say he only ever defended Serb interests. But the new, emerging generation in Serbia seem to be tired of the past and its wars - they want to leave that behind and move forward to the future.
Following the arrest of Radovan Karadzic in 2008, Gen Mladic became the most prominent Bosnian war crimes suspect at large.
Serbia had been under intense international pressure to arrest him and send him to the UN International Criminal Tribunal to the former Yugoslavia in The Hague.Serbian TV showed footage of Gen Mladic wearing a baseball cap and walking slowly as he appeared in court in Belgrade.
His lawyer, Milos Saljic, told reporters the judge had attempted to question Gen Mladic but the suspect was in a "difficult psychological and physical condition", and was unable to communicate.
The hearing is expected to be resumed on Friday, reports say.
Gen Mladic asserts that he does not recognise the authority of the UN war-crimes tribunal, Mr Saljic added.
The BBC's Mark Lowen in Belgrade says the Serbian government will be keen for Gen Mladic to be extradited quickly, hoping that his departure might prevent further protests by Serb nationalists who still see him as a defender of the Serbian people.
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Mladic's lawyer Milos Saljic describes his client's condition
Mr Tadic rejected criticism that Serbia had been reluctant to seize Gen Mladic.
"We have been co-operating with the Hague tribunal fully from the beginning of the mandate of this government," he said.
A spokeswoman for families of Srebrenica victims, Hajra Catic, told AFP news agency: "After 16 years of waiting, for us, the victims' families, this is a relief."Continued
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