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Bosnia War Crimes Fugitive Ratko Mladic Arrested

RENEE MONTANGE, Host:

This is MORNING EDITION, from NPR News. I'm Renee Montagne.

MARY LOUISE KELLY, Host:

Hey, Sylvia.

SYLVIA POGGIOLI: Hi, there.

LOUISE KELLY: So, how did they get him, and are they sure it's him?

POGGIOLI: If you remember, the EU had conditioned Serbia's membership bid on the arrest of Ratko Mladic.

LOUISE KELLY: Now, Ratko Mladic, as we mentioned, has been wanted on charges of genocide. Remind us what exactly his role was during the war in Bosnia.

POGGIOLI: And he came in, and there are pictures of him - horrible, chilling pictures of him caressing the face of a little, frightened boy, promising nothing will happen, as he sent all the women and children away in buses and then, you know, the TV cameras disappeared, and then the massacre happened over the next few days. He is definitely accused of that, and there's a paper trail at the International War Crimes Tribunal at the Hague, where a lot of evidence has already been gathered and been presented in other trials that really points the finger at Mladic as the architect of that massacre.

LOUISE KELLY: And will he now face trial in the Hague at the International War Crimes Tribunal there?

POGGIOLI: Of course, Mladic now has more popularity, odd to say, among die-hard nationalists in Serbia. When Karadzic was arrested, there wasn't much of a reaction. There's likely to be more of a reaction in die-hard, nationalist Serb circles over Mladic's arrest. So I think that they'll probably try to get him to the Hague as fast as possible.

LOUISE KELLY: OK. Thank you, Sylvia.

POGGIOLI: Thank you.

LOUISE KELLY: That's NPR's Sylvia Poggioli, updating us on the news today out of Serbia: War crimes fugitive Ratko Mladic has been arrested. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.

Sylvia Poggioli is senior European correspondent for NPR's International Desk covering political, economic, and cultural news in Italy, the Vatican, Western Europe, and the Balkans. Poggioli's on-air reporting and analysis have encompassed the fall of communism in Eastern Europe, the turbulent civil war in the former Yugoslavia, and how immigration has transformed European societies.
Mary Louise Kelly is a co-host of All Things Considered, NPR's award-winning afternoon newsmagazine.