Ratko Mladic, the former Bosnian Serb general who is one of the world’s most wanted war crimes fugitives, was arrested in Serbia, finally ending a 16-year manhunt that had often been denounced as halfhearted.
Mr Mladic is sought by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia for alleged genocide and war crimes during the 1992-1995 Bosnian war. He is accused of orchestrating the siege of Sarajevo and the massacre of 8,000 Muslim men and boys at Srebrenica – the worst atrocity in Europe since the second world war.
The arrest on Thursday is a boost for Serbia’s hopes of joining the European Union, long held back by accusations from EU states and war crimes prosecutors that the former Yugoslav republic was not doing enough to arrest him.