The wartime political leader of the Bosnian Serbs, Radovan Karadzic, was captured in two thousand eight. He also faced charges in The Hague, but his trial was suspended. Former Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic also went before the tribunal, but he died during his trial.

Serbia has been under intense international pressure to arrest Ratko Mladic. President Boris Tadic announced that he was arrested Thursday morning. The former general was at a farmhouse in a village about one hundred kilometers from Belgrade.

The arrest happened during a visit by Catherine Ashton, the foreign policy chief for the European Union. But President Tadic dismissed the suggestion that the government could have acted sooner.

BORIS TADIC: "We are not making calculations when and how to deliver. We are doing that because we truly believe this is in accordance with our law."

The Serbian president said there will be an investigation into how Mr. Mladic avoided arrest for so long.

Kada Hotic from the Mothers of Srebrenica Association accused Serbia of knowingly hiding a man she calls a "monster." Still, she and other family members of victims welcomed the arrest, while some Bosnian Serbs expressed anger.

JAMES KER-LINDSAY: "Many Serbs, yes, do regard Ratko Mladic as some sort of hero."

James Ker-Lindsay is an expert on southeast Europe at the London School of Economics.

JAMES KER-LINDSAY: "They look to the events that took place in Bosnia and rather than seeing him as a military leader of an act of aggression rather view him as being the defender of the Bosnian Serb people. So in that sense, there is a certain degree of latent support for him."