Ratko Mladic Arrest: UK's Hague Hails Historic Moment'

Gen Mladic, commander of the Bosnian Serb army during the war of 1992-95, was the last remaining high-profile fugitive from the Bosnian war. He is accused of a key role in the 1995 Srebrenica massacre.
Mr Hague said the arrest should be a warning for Col Gaddafi and others who were committing war crimes in Libya. Gen Mladic was indicted by the UN war crimes tribunal in The Hague in 1995 for crimes including genocide over the Srebrenica massacre - in which at least 7,500 men and boys were killed - the worst single atrocity in Europe since World War II.He disappeared after the arrest of former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic in 2001 and became the most prominent Bosnian war crime suspect still at large, after former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic was arrested in 2008.Serbian President Boris Tadic said work was under way to extradite Gen Mladic to the international war crimes tribunal in The Hague.

'Appalling crimes'

Mr Hague said the arrest was of enormous significance and marked the beginning of a new chapter for the western Balkans. The foreign secretary said the regime in Libya - which has carried out a brutal crackdown on anti-Gaddafi protesters - should also take note."These things do not get forgotten," he told the BBC. "For any members of that regime who are contemplating anything that makes them complicit in war crimes, or crimes against humanity, this does carry an important lesson for them."
Prime Minister David Cameron said Gen Mladic was accused of orchestrating "the most appalling war crimes". "There is a very good reason why the long arm of the international law has been looking for this man for such a long time," he said.For Labour, Shadow foreign secretary Douglas Alexander said the arrest showed that "however much you hide and however much you run" no-one could hide from justice. "There have been many people over many, many years who have been working for this outcome and I think we owe it to the victims of the terrible massacres in Srebrenica and Sarajevo that he now faces the full force of international law."And he added: "It does, I think, remove one of the significant obstacles, perhaps the most significant obstacle, preventing Serbia being able to move towards a securer European future.
Former Liberal Democrat leader Lord Ashdown, who was High Representative for Bosnia and Herzegovina between 2002 and 2007, also welcomed the news and said his trial would be a chance for the whole Balkan region to put the past behind them.Conservative MP Col Bob Stewart, who commanded UN troops in Bosnia in 1992, told the BBC: It is very, very important that this man Mladic is brought to The Hague quickly, the trial starts quickly, the trial is expeditious in dealing with the matter and, actually, at the end of it justice prevails.