Mladic extradited to The Hague

BELGRADE, Serbia, May 31 (UPI) -- War crimes suspect Ratko Mladic Tuesday was extradited to The Hague, Netherlands, Serbian Justice Minister Snezana Malovic said.

Hours after the Special Court in Belgrade rejected his appeal not to be transferred to a U.N. tribunal in the Netherlands, Mladic was transported from the detention center at the Special Court to the Belgrade airport for a flight to the Netherlands, B92 reported.

He will appear before the Hague court within 48 hours to enter his plea.

Mladic, under heavy guard, visited his daughter's grave Tuesday in a Belgrade cemetery, prosecutors said.

Ana Mladic was found dead in her family home in a Belgrade neighborhood in March 1994. The official version of her death indicated she used her father's service pistol to commit suicide.

Mladic, who was awaiting the court ruling on his transfer to a U.N. tribunal at The Hague, Netherlands, was taken to his daughter's grave in Belgrade in a convoy of police vehicles, an ambulance and an armored Land Rover, The New York Times reported.

Since his capture last week, Mladic repeatedly sought permission to visit the grave of his daughter, who he maintains was murdered, despite the official ruling of suicide.

Mladic, 69, had been on the run almost 16 years. He is accused of being responsible for the 1992-1995 Siege of Sarajevo and the Srebrenica massacre -- the largest mass murder in Europe since the Danube Swabians concentration camps of World War II.

Bruno Vekaric, Serbia's deputy war crimes prosecutor, said prosecutors and the court granted Mladic's request to visit the graves as his attorney pushed an appeal of his transfer to The Hague to face genocide charges before the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia for his role during the 1990s Balkan war.