Nationalists are furious that the pro-Western government apprehended Mladic on Thursday after nearly 16 years on the run.
View full sizeSupporters of genocide suspect Ratko Mladic wave flags with him picture and reading in Serbian: "Serbian Hero" during a rally organized by the ultra nationalist Serbian Radical Party in front of the Parliament building, in Belgrade, Serbia, on Sunday, May 29, 2011. Thousands of demonstrators sang nationalist songs and carried banners honoring jailed former Bosnian Serb army commander Ratko Mladic on Sunday as they poured into the street outside Serbia's parliament to demand the release of the war-crimes suspect, whom they consider a hero. (AP Photo/Darko Vojinovic)By Jovana Gec
BELGRADE, Serbia (AP) — Thousands of demonstrators sang nationalist songs and carried banners honoring jailed former Bosnian Serb army commander Ratko Mladic on Sunday as they poured into the street outside Serbia's parliament to demand the release of the war-crimes suspect, whom they consider a hero.
More than 3,000 riot police took positions around government buildings and Western embassies, fearing the demonstration could turn violent, as similar rallies have in the past. Riot police blocked small groups of extremists from reaching the rally.
Some protesters near the Turkish Embassy, which is close to the parliament building, hurled stones at the police, who pushed the crowd back. There were no immediate reports of injuries.
Some of the least 7,000 protesters at the rally chanted right-wing slogans. A few gave Nazi salutes. Demonstrators said Serbia should not hand Mladic over to the U.N. war crimes court in The Hague, Netherlands.
"Cooperation with The Hague tribunal represents treason," Serbian Radical Party official Lidija Vukicevic told the crowd. "This is a protest against the shameful arrest of the Serbian hero."
Demonstrators demanded the ouster of Serbia's pro-Western President Boris Tadic, who ordered Mladic's arrest. A sign on the stage read, "Tadic is not Serbia."
Supporters of the extreme nationalist Radical Party were bused in to attend the rally. Right-wing extremists and hooligan groups have also urged followers to appear in large numbers.
Nationalists are furious that the pro-Western government apprehended Mladic on Thursday after nearly 16 years on the run. The 69-year-old former general was caught at a relative's home in a northern Serbian village.
The U.N. tribunal charged Mladic with genocide in 1995, accusing him of orchestrating the massacre of 8,000 Muslim men and boys in Srebrenica and other war crimes of Bosnia's 1992-95 war. Mladic's arrest is considered critical to Serbia's efforts to join the European Union, and to reconciliation in the region after a series of ethnic wars of the 1990s.
Mladic's son, Darko Mladic, said Sunday that despite the indictment, his father insists he was not responsible for the mass executions committed by his troops after they overran the eastern Bosnian enclave of Srebrenica in July 1995.
"Whatever was done behind his back, he has nothing to do with that," Darko Mladic said.
The massacre in Srebrenica is considered to be Europe's worst atrocity since World War II. Bosnian Serb troops under Mladic's command rounded up boys and men and executed them over several days, burying the remains in mass graves in the area. Prosecutors say they have compelling evidence that Mladic personally ordered and oversaw the executions in and around Srebrenica.
View full sizeA Bosnian member of the International Commission for Missing Persons inspects bags with body remains, exhumed from mass graves, as he prepares body remains for the process of DNA identification of the victims from the Bosnian war, in Tuzla, 140 kms north of Sarajevo, Bosnia, Friday, May 27, 2011. The ICMP keeps finding Mladic's victims in numerous mass graves, spread around Srebrenica. The bodies are then exhumed, identified through DNA analysis and returned to the families. Almost all Srebrenica victims get buried then in a memorial center near Srebrenica. This year, another 500 will be laid to rest there. (AP Photo/Darko Zabus)But Serb nationalists in Serbia and parts of Bosnia still consider Mladic a hero — the general who against all odds tried to defend Serbs in the Bosnian conflict. Among his men, Mladic commanded fierce devotion — many Bosnian Serb soldiers pledged to follow him to the death.
Some 3,000 supporters arrived Sunday by bus from other parts of Bosnia to a rally at Kalinovik, the area where Mladic grew up. Many wore black T-shirts with Mladic's picture and the words "Serbia in my heart."
The crowd called Tadic a "betrayer" for ordering the arrest of "the Serb hero" and urged him to "kill himself." Many said they would fight under Mladic again.
Many of the Kalinovik protesters headed afterward to the shack Mladic was born in at the end of a steep, muddy road in the village of Bozanici, turning the shabby house into a pilgrimage site. Mladic's aunt and cousins spoke to them, telling stories about Mladic's childhood.
Mladic's family and lawyers have been fighting his extradition, arguing that the former general is too ill to face charges. The family plans to appeal the extradition on Monday and to demand an independent medical checkup — moves described by the authorities as a delaying tactics.
"He's a man who has not taken care of his health for a while, but not to the point that he cannot stand trial," Serbia's deputy war crimes prosecutor Bruno Vekaric told The Associated Press. "According to doctors, he doesn't need hospitalization."
Mladic has suffered at least two, and possibly three, strokes, the latest in 2008, his son said. The suspect's right arm is only semi-functional, and his family says he is not lucid.
Lawyer Milos Saljic says that Mladic above all keeps demanding that he be allowed to visit the grave of his daughter, who committed suicide in 1994.
"He says if he can't go there, he wants his daughter's coffin brought in here," the lawyer added. "His condition is alarming."
Saljic said the family does not believe that Mladic would receive proper medical attention in The Hague. He noted that several high-profile Serbs had died there, including former President Slobodan Milosevic, who suffered a heart attack.
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Dusan Stojanovic and Danica Kirka contributed.