Gen. Ratko Mladic's ruthlessness was legendary: "Burn their brains!"
he once bellowed as his men pounded Sarajevo with artillery fire.
So was his arrogance: He nicknamed himself "God," and
kept goats which he was said to have named after Western leaders he
despised.
Mladic, the wartime Bosnian Serb military chief
wanted for genocide for Europe's worst massacre of civilians since World
War II, was the U.N. war crimes tribunal's No. 1 co-fugitive together
with his partner in crime, Radovan Karadzic.
Mladic, 69, had eluded capture since he was indicted
by the tribunal in 1995. But his days as a fugitive were numbered after
Serbian security forces captured Karadzic on July 21, 2008, in Belgrade.
On Thursday, Serbia's president announced that Mladic is in custody.
Known for personally leading his troops in the 1995
Serb onslaught against the U.N.-protected enclave of Srebrenica — where
thousands of Muslim men and boys were killed — Mladic was indicted for
genocide against the Bosnian town's population.
Just hours before the massacre, Mladic handed out
candy to Muslim children rounded up at the town's square and assured
them that all would be fine — even patting one child on the head. That
sinister image is forever imprinted in the minds of Srebrenica
survivors.
Born March 12, 1942, in the southeastern Bosnian
village of Bozinovci, Mladic graduated from Belgrade's prestigious
military academy and joined the Yugoslav Communists in 1965. Embarking
on an army career when Yugoslavia was a six-state federation, Mladic
rose steadily through the military ranks, making general before the
country's breakup in 1991.
At the start of the Balkan bloodbath, he was in
Croatia leading Yugoslav troops in Knin and was believed to have played a
crucial role in the army bombardment of the coastal city of Zadar. A
year later, he assumed command of the Yugoslav Army's 2nd Military
District, which effectively became the Bosnian Serb army.
Appointed in 1992 by Karadzic, Mladic led the Bosnian Serb army until the Dayton accords brought peace to Bosnia in 1995.
Read more: Yahoo news
