UN judges refuse Mladic request for provisional release

THE HAGUE, Netherlands – United Nations judges have refused to grant former Bosnian Serb military chief Gen. Ratko Mladic provisional release on health grounds, saying they could not be sure he would return.

In a decision released Friday, judges at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia who are trying Mladic for genocide and other offences during Bosnia’s 1992-95 war rejected his motion seeking release so he could travel to Russia for medical treatment.

The three-judge panel said it was “not convinced that the accused will return to the seat of the tribunal if granted provisional release.”

The judges said Mladic’s lawyers had failed to convince them that he is not getting adequate health care at the court’s detention unit. The panel said it believes that Mladic’s “health is compatible with continued detention.”