BBC News with Zoe Diamond
The former Bosnian Serb military commander General Ratko Mladic has been arrested by police in Serbia 16 years after he was
indict
ed for alleged war crimes during the Bosnian conflict. The Serbian President Boris Tadic said General Mladic was detained in the north of">of the country. Mark Lowen reports from the Serbian capital Belgrade.
It was an early morning raid on a house in the northern Serbian province of">of Vojvodina which captured the former Bosnian Serb commander in an operation by the country's security services. The arrest of">of Ratko Mladic
brings to an end
to the hunt for one of">of the world's most wanted men. He is charged with genocide and other war crimes from the Bosnian conflict of">of the 1990s,
notably
of
orchestrating
the massacre of over 7,000 Muslims in the eastern Bosnian town of Srebrenica in 1995, Europe's worst atrocity since the Second World War. But this is also a hugely important moment for Serbia's hopes of joining the European Union, which were dependent on Mladic's capture.
Hours after the announcement of his arrest, crowds
gather
ed in a central square in Belgrade, calling for the general's release. Ratko Mladic has appeared at a special court in Belgrade where an investigative judge will decide whether to
extradite
him to the international war crimes tribunal in The Hague. Serbian television showed footage of the 69-year-old suspect looking frail and walking slowly. His defence lawyer said that the hearing was