For Immediate Release
Today’s arrest of Ratko Mladic, 16 years after hisindictment by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY)in1995, is a major victory for the international rule of law. Physicians forHuman Rights (PHR) calls for Mladic’s swift transfer to The Hague to face trialat the ICTY for crimes against humanity and genocide.
“The arrest today by Serbian security services of RatkoMladic, the military leader of Bosnian Serb forces during the 1992-1995 war isa long-awaited step in the road to justice for the thousands of victims ofatrocities in the former Yugoslavia,” said Susannah Sirkin, Deputy Director atPhysicians for Human Rights. “Those indicted for war crimes all over the worldmust realize that justice may be slow, but is inevitable, due to the tenacityand determination of the international community.”
PHR calls on the international community to continue providingassistance for survivors and support for the continuing effort to identify themissing.
In 1996 PHR conducted the exhumations and forensicexaminations of several large mass graves in Bosnia and Croatia for the ICTY). PHR’s medical and scientific teams also helped exhume andidentify those killed during the July 1995 Srebrenica massacre orchestrated byRadovan Karadzic and implemented by Ratko Mladic. The two are chargedwith leading and implementing a systematic campaign of murder, rape, and forceddisplacement against the people of Bosnia.
PHR teams also provided psycho-social assistance to thefamilies of the Srebrenica victims.
PHR teams exhumed hundredsof bodies in the mass graves around Srebrenica – many with single gunshotwounds to the head and with their hands tied behind their backs with wires.
Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) is a New York-based advocacy organization that uses science and medicine to prevent mass atrocities and severe human rights violations. Learn more here.