BELGRADE, Serbia -- The arrest of Ratko Mladic offers Europe some closure on a horrific period of its recent history, and is a substantial boost for Serbia and its president, Boris Tadic. But obstacles remain ahead for Serbia on its long journey back to the European family.
After 16 years of evading near misses and false leads, Mladic came quietly. The former head of the Bosnian Serb Army (VRS) was found not in a mountain redoubt in Bosnia, but in an innocuous town on the northern Serbian plains.
Mladic has been indicted on 15 counts, including genocide and crimes against humanity, by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY). The charges are linked to his role in the Bosnian war, including, most notoriously, the Srebrenica Massacre, in which around 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys were massacred, as well as the Siege of Sarajevo, during which 10,000 civilians perished.