Reuters

General Ratko Mladic (centre) arrives at a special court in Belgrade. The Bosnian Serb wartime general was arrested in Lazarevo recently after years on the run from international genocide charges.

New York - Serbia met a key obligation to a United Nations war crimes tribunal by arresting Bosnian Serb commander Ratko Mladic but still needs to explain why it took so long, the court's chief prosecutor said on Monday.

The prosecutor, Serge Brammertz, told the UN Security Council there remained “troubling questions” about how Mladic, who led Serb forces in Bosnia's brutal 1992-95 ethnic war, managed to evade capture for 16 years.

Cooperation with the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia is crucial to Serbia's prospects for joining the European Union.

Mladic, branded the “butcher of the Balkans” for his wartime role, was arrested in Serbia on May 26 and sent to The Hague, where he made his first appearance before the tribunal last Friday.

“With Ratko Mladic's arrest, Serbia has met one of its key obligations towards the tribunal,” Brammertz told the 15-nation Security Council.

“The fact remains that he was at large for 16 years... This raises troubling questions about how it was possible for this individual to elude the substantial resources of a state system for so many years,” Brammertz said.

“Serbia now has an important opportunity to help the public understand why Ratko Mladic has been arrested and why justice demands that he stand trial.”

EU states, especially the Netherlands, have made cooperation with the Hague tribunal a key condition for Serbia's goal of membership of the 27-nation bloc.

Brammertz's statement to the Security Council was cautious on this point and he acknowledged that, in a written report to the council submitted two weeks before Mladic was arrested, he had criticised Serbia's efforts.

Key EU states on the council were more forthcoming.

German envoy Miguel Berger said Mladic's arrest “will bring Serbia closer to its European perspective”, while Britain's Philip Parham said it was “evidence of the Serbian government's commitment to cooperation” with the tribunal.

Serbian Ambassador Feodor Starcevic told the council Belgrade “believes it has now undoubtedly achieved full co-operation” with the court.

He also said the arrest of the last remaining fugitive, Goran Hadzic, who was leader of the Serb enclave of Krajina in Croatia in the early 1990s, would remain a priority.

Brammertz said he wanted Hadzic “apprehended without further delay”, called on Serbia to improve its tracking efforts and also urged Belgrade to follow through on pledges to investigate Mladic's support networks while he was in hiding.

Mladic is charged in the 1995 slaughter of 8,000 Muslim men and boys in the Bosnian town of Srebrenica and in the Serb siege of the capital Sarajevo. He entered no plea at his court appearance on Friday. - Reuters