BELGRADE (Reuters) – A son of Ratko Mladic said on Friday his family believed the Bosnian Serb wartime general should not be extradited to face genocide charges because of his poor health.
"We are almost certain he cannot be extradited in such condition," said Darko Mladic, who said family members had met Ratko earlier for the first time for many years.
Mladic was later interviewed by an investigative judge at the Belgrade special war crimes court, and is expected to be extradited to face genocide charges at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague.
"He is in very bad shape. His right arm is half paralyzed. His right side is partly numb," Darko Mladic said.
Mladic has received some treatment, Darko said. "But we have asked that he should be transferred to the military hospital and we have sought an independent medical team from Russia to oversee his treatment."
"He recognized us, he is aware that he is in court detention," Darko said.
Asked what it was like to see his father after a gap of so many years, he replied: "Imagine." He declined to comment on his father's whereabouts over the last decade. "This is the first time we see him."
He said a cardiologist and a neurologist had agreed to come from Moscow and help with his father's treatment but added this depended on obtaining the approval of the court.
Mladic, accused of orchestrating the 43-month siege of the Bosnian capital Sarajevo and the massacre of 8,000 Muslim men and boys from the town of Srebrenica in July 1995, was found in a farmhouse owned by a cousin about 100 km (60 miles) from Belgrade.
The arrest on Thursday of Mladic, the last of the three men accused of instigating ethnic cleansing during the 1992-95 Bosnian war, was expected to clear the way for the former pariah state Serbia to join the European Union.
(Reporting by Aleksandar Vasovic; Writing by Maja Zuvela; Editing by Tim Pearce)
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