26 May 11 - Ratko Mladic, suspected of command responsibility for war crimes in Bosnia including the massacre of over 7,500 men and boys at Srebrenica in 1995, has been arrested in Serbia.
“The Aegis Trust warmly welcomes the arrest of Ratko Mladic, the most wanted war crimes suspect in the Balkans,” says Dr James Smith, Chief Executive of the Aegis Trust.
“This is wonderful news – especially for the survivors of atrocities committed during the Bosnian war, who have waited a long time for this day to come and justice to be done,” says Melissa Pack, Senior Counsel at Aegis, formerly a trial attorney in the prosecution of Slobodan Milosevic.
"This news comes at a good time, because there is great political instability in Bosnia right now," says Kemal Pervanic, a survivor of the Omarska concentration camp at Prijedor, who suffered at the hands of Mladic's soldiers. "Bosnia needs good relations with its most important neighbour, and so I would hope that this news will contribute to improving relations between Bosnia and Serbia."
Aegis last year succeeded in securing a change to UK law that would allow the arrest and prosecution of anyone in this country suspected of genocide or international crimes committed in countries such as Bosnia during the 1990s.
Following Mladic's arrest, the Guardian has published a list of the world's most wanted war criminals still at large, using information from the Aegis Trust's universaljurisdiction.org.
