Ratko Mladic cleared for extradition

A medical team in Serbia has determined that war crimes suspect Ratko Mladic is in good enough shape to be extradited to face a war crimes tribunal, a court spokeswoman in Belgrade said Friday.

While Mladic suffers from several chronic conditions, the team said there are no immediate problems barring a move. This comes after five doctors examined Mladic Thursday night, said Mladic's lawyer, Milos Saljic.
"The court decided that conditions for extradition have been met," court spokeswoman Maya Kovacevic said.
The determination was made during a deportation hearing Friday, held to decide whether Mladic will be transferred to the United Nations war crimes tribunal in The Hague, Netherlands.

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Mladic refused to make any statement before the court, but Saljic said the Mladic team will appeal. That appeal could come by Monday.
Mladic's son, Darko, said his father has trouble speaking and his right arm is partially paralyzed.
"We saw him for the first time in many years. He's in bad shape," Darko Mladic said to reporters in front of the courthouse. "His health is very deteriorated."
He said the family is asking the court to send Mladic to a hospital for treatment and analysis of his physical and mental condition, and insisted that his father is not guilty of the grave charges against him.
The judge will recommend a decision to Serbia's justice ministry, Saljic told state media.
Asked how soon the judge would rule on the appeal, Kovacevic answered, "immediately."
Mladic is in a jail near Belgrade facing charges that he presided over Europe's worst massacre since World War II. He was arrested Thursday after more than 15 years in hiding.
Mladic was the highest-ranking fugitive to remain at large after the conflicts that accompanied the breakup of Yugoslavia in the 1990s.
Saljic described Mladic as a "ruin of a man" who has suffered two heart attacks and three strokes since 1996.
Serbian President Boris Tadic said Serbian authorities are still investigating who aided Mladic during his decade and a half on the run, but he called allegations that the country's military sheltered him "rubbish."
"At the end of the day, he was protected by a very small group of people from his family," Tadic said. He acknowledged that Mladic may have been aided by military officers early on, "but at the end of that process, I don't believe that."
The former Yugoslav army officer was the commanding general of Bosnian Serb forces during the 1992-95 war that followed Bosnia-Herzegovina's secession from Yugoslavia.
The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia has charged him with leading a genocidal campaign against Bosnia's Muslim and Croat populations, including "direct involvement" in the 1995 killings of nearly 8,000 men and boys in the Muslim enclave of Srebrenica -- the worst European massacre since the Holocaust.

However, Mladic remains a hero to some Serbs, and small outbursts of anger in reaction to his arrest were seen in Belgrade late Thursday.