Vujic visits Mladic, speaks with IRMCT president

THE HAGUE - Serbian Justice Minister Nenad Vujic on Monday visited former Republika Srpska Army General Ratko Mladic and former Republika Srpska Minister Mico Stanisic, who are serving prison sentences in The Hague, and subsequently met with International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals (IRMCT) President Graciela Gatti Santana, demanding Mladic's urgent release for treatment in Serbia due to his serious health condition.

In a statement to Tanjug, Vujic said Mladic was in very serious condition and had difficulties communicating.

"He told me to give his regards to the Serbs and the Serbian people, and to convey his gratitude for the care the Republic of Serbia is showing for him, but later lost strength and had great difficulties communicating, responding with 'Yes' and 'No,'" Vujic said, noting that Mladic, who is in a prison hospital, had not been brought to the meeting in a wheelchair, but on a trolley.

Vujic said that, at the meeting with Gati Santana, he had presented the demands of Mladic's family and the Republic of Serbia, as well as Serbia's guarantees for Mladic's release on humanitarian grounds because, as he noted, it was not a matter of politics but of life, and because he needed adequate care in a serious medical institution.

He expressed Serbia's readiness to provide additional guarantees, if required by the IRMCT, as the issue of Mladic's life was the priority.

"I have also reiterated to the president of the Mechanism that keeping General Mladic in prison further represented a violation of international law and international standards established by the Mandela Rules, where one of the fundamental rules is that a sentence must not be revenge, whereas we can talk of a kind of revenge here. Secondly, under those rules, every convict has the right to specialist care, adequate care, and that is the required international standard," Vujic said.

He reiterated that Serbia had requested from the IRMCT respect for international rules adopted by the UN.

Mladic's life and the conditions for medical treatment are the main issue, Vujic said.

"We will also raise this issue before the UN and before the Human Rights Committee and the Committee Against Torture because we believe that there are also elements of inhumane treatment in General Mladic's case, and I also plan to point out this issue in an address to the Security Council in June, but I will definitely also communicate with the UN before June to present my observations from today," the minister said, adding that the observations of Serbian doctors who were due to visit Mladic on Wednesday would be conveyed as well.

Besides visiting Mladic, the doctors will examine his medical documentation because there is suspicion that not all medical protocols have been followed as there are evident omissions in the medical treatment he has been receiving, Vujic said, adding that he had also warned Gatti Santana of those omissions.

He also said he had requested that the IRMCT get in contact with the UK government to enable former Republika Srpska President Radovan Karadzic's family to visit him in prison.

Following his arrest in 2011, the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia convicted Mladic on 10 out of 11 counts of his indictment in November 2017 and sentenced him to life imprisonment.