War crimes fugitive Mladic arrested in Serbia
By DUSAN STOJANOVIC, Associated Press
May 26, 2011 6:30 AM CDT
FILE In this June 28, 1996 file photo Bosnian Serb military commander General Ratko Mladic, center, smiles as he visits troops to mark both the fourth anniversary of the founding of his Bosnian Serb army and St. Vitus' Day, the anniversary of the Serb defeat by the Turks at Kosovo in 1389, near the...   (Associated Press)

Gen. Ratko Mladic, Europe's most wanted war crimes fugitive, has been arrested, Serbian President Boris Tadic said Thursday.

Mladic has been on the run since 1995 when he was indicted by the U.N. war crimes tribunal in The Hague, Netherlands, for genocide in the slaughter of some 8,000 Bosnian Muslims in Srebrenica and other crimes committed by his troops during Bosnia's 1992-95 war.

"On behalf of the Republic of Serbia we announce that Ratko Mladic has been arrested," Tadic told reporters.

Croatian media, which first broke the story, said police there got confirmation from their Serbian colleagues that DNA analysis confirmed Mladic's identity. Belgrade's B92 radio said Mladic was arrested Thursday in a village close to the northern Serbian town of Zrenjanin.

The EU has conditioned Serbia's membership bid on the arrest of Mladic.

The chief U.N. war crimes prosecutor has complained in the past that Serbian authorities were not doing enough to capture him. Prosecutors have said they believed he was hiding in Serbia under the protection of hardliners who consider him a hero. Mladic was last seen in Belgrade in 2006.