Bosnian Serb wartime general Ratko Mladic was arrested in Serbia on Thursday after years on the run from international genocide charges, opening the way for the once-pariah state to approach the European mainstream, Reuters reported. The general, accused of orchestrating the massacre of 8,000 Muslim men and boys in the town of Srebrenica and a brutal 43-month siege of Sarajevo during Bosnia's 1992-5 war, was found in a farmhouse owned by a relative, a police official said. "Mladic was handcuffed and whisked away," said the official, who said Mladic had been cooperative during the arrest. A friend of the Mladic family said he had been put on a plane to the international war crimes tribual in The Hague, but Serbia said he was still in its custody. "On behalf of the Republic of Serbia I can announce the arrest of Ratko Mladic. The extradition process is under way," Serbian President Boris Tadic told reporters in Belgrade. Tadic confirmed Mladic, 69, had been detained in Serbia, which had long said it could not find a man who was armed and funded by the late Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic and is still seen as a hero by many Serbs. Mladic was arrested in the village of Lazarevo, near the northeastern town of Zrenjanin around 100 km (60 miles) from the capital Belgrade in the early hours, the police official said. -- SPA
