Former Bosnian Serb military commander Ratko Mladic used his power to commit atrocities that tore a nation apart and destroyed communities, and he must be held to account, a UN war crimes prosecutor said on Wednesday.
Chief prosecutor Serge Brammertz said Mladic, who was arrested in Serbia last Thursday and extradited after 16 years on the run, will face genocide charges at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia on Friday.
The 69-year-old career soldier was branded "the butcher of the Balkans" for his campaign to seize territory for Serbs after Bosnia, following Croatia, broke away from the Serb-dominated Yugoslav federation of six republics in the early 1990s.
At least 130,000 people were killed in five years of war. But Serb nationalists believe Mladic simply defended the nation and did nothing worse on the battlefield than Croats or Bosnian Muslims. Court registrar John Hocking, speaking to reporters in The Hague, contradicted comments by Mladic's lawyer and son that the ex-general, arrested alone in a Serbian farmhouse, was disoriented and mentally unfit for extradition.
Hocking said Tuesday's transfer of Mladic to the court's detention unit "was a very co-operative, very smooth procedure".
"He was extremely cooperative. He made no comment on the charges against him. He asked a lot about procedures," Hocking said. "He was really paying attention and listening to the information we provided. We had good communication."