Serbia Hands Over Mladic Diaries To UN War Crimes Court

An Internet screen grab reportedly shows Ratko Mladic and his wife Bosiljka after his indictment for genocide and other grave crimes in 1995.

Prosecutors at the Yugoslav war crimes tribunal say Serbia has sent the court a bundle of diaries written by Bosnian Serb wartime military commander General Ratko Mladic.

They have filed a motion seeking to have the notebooks included as evidence in the case against Radovan Karadzic, the Bosnian Serb wartime political leader. Karadzic is on trial for allegedly masterminding Bosnian Serb atrocities throughout the war.

The 18 notebooks contain about 3,500 pages with Mladic's handwriting from June 1991 to November 1996. They were seized by Serb authorities earlier this year from the Belgrade apartment of Mladic's wife, Bosiljka.

Prosecutors did not say what information the diaries contain. But prosecution spokeswoman Olga Kavran said they "constitute a significant volume of new evidence."

Mladic has been on the run since being indicted by the UN court in 1995 on charges of genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity.

compiled from agency reports