BOZANICI, Bosnia-Herzegovina - Hundreds of admirers of war crimes suspect Ratko Mladic were streaming Sunday to his childhood home in a remote east Bosnian village, turning the shabby house into a pilgrimage site.
Some 3,000 supporters of Mladic arrived on buses from other parts of Bosnia to the town of Kalinovik to protest his arrest in Serbia on Thursday. Many of them then headed to the shack he was born in at the end of a steep, muddy road in the village of Bozanici. Mladic's aunt and cousins spoke to them, telling stories about Mladic's childhood.
"Even as a child he behaved like an adult. He was smart and alert," elderly Slavojka Mladic told the visitors proudly as some of them kissed her hand to show their respect.
The conversation shifted to the former general's arrest Thursday in Serbia. Slavojka Mladic insisted her nephew had been just "a leader protecting his homeland. And now look what they are doing to him."
People are also reading…
Mladic was indicted in 1995 by the U.N. war crimes tribunal in The Hague, Netherlands, on charges including genocide in connection with the slaughter 8,000 Muslims in Srebrenica - the worst massacre in Europe since the Nazi era.
But his supporters believe this is not true and he only defended the Serbs during the 1992-95 Bosnian war.
Mladic's first cousin Dusko, also a resident of Bozanici, proudly recalled childhood days with his relative. "I was fortunate enough to take after him in terms of courage, humanity and honesty," he said.
