Serbia has announced that they now think they have Ratko Mladic in custody. The fact that they need DNA to be sure in itself illustrates the long period in which he has been at large. He was indicted already in 1995, that is 15 years ago.

It was the year after the Olympic Games at Lillehammer; Bill Clinton had just barely got into stride in his first turn as president; John Major was prime minister in Britain; Jacques Chirac became president in France and started testing nukes in the Pacific; it was the year of the Oklahoma bombing; Christopher Reeve got thrown from a horse and was paralysed; OJ Simpson was found not guilty.

And of course it is the year of the Srebrenica massacre, which is one of the major crimes Mladic presided over.

The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia wants him transferred to the Hague to face charges of

the direct involvement in the genocide committed after the fall of Srebrenica in July 1995;

the killing of close to 8,000 men and boys following the fall of this enclave;

the terror inflicted upon civilians during the 1992-1995 siege of Sarajevo;

the widespread campaign of persecutions, deportation, torture and murders during 1992 in large parts of Bosnia and Herzegovina, including infamous detention camps like Omarska, Keraterm, Manjača and Trnopolje in northwestern Bosnia and Herzegovina.


I hope he does not have a heart attack before he is made to face them.