(10 Jun 2011) HEADLINE: Raw Video: Mladic arrest sparks clashes in Belgrade
CAPTION: Protesters clashed with riot police in Belgrade, Serbia on Sunday, after several thousand supporters of jailed war-crimes suspect Ratko Mladic rallied outside the parliament building to demand his release. (May 29)
STORYLINE:
Protesters throwing stones and bottles clashed with baton-wielding riot police on Sunday in Belgrade, after several thousand supporters of jailed war-crimes suspect Ratko Mladic rallied outside the parliament building to demand his release.
Rioters overturned garbage containers, broke traffic lights and set off firecrackers as they stormed through downtown.
Cordons of riot police tried to block their advances, and skirmishes took place in several locations in the centre of the capital.
There were no immediate reports of injuries or arrests.
The clashes began after a rally that drew at least seven thousand demonstrators, many singing nationalist songs and carrying banners honouring Mladic, the former Bosnian Serb military commander.
Some chanted right-wing slogans and a few gave Nazi salutes.
The demonstrators, who consider Mladic a hero, said Serbia should not hand him over to the UN war crimes court in The Hague, Netherlands.
Demonstrators demanded the ouster of Serbia's pro-Western President Boris Tadic, who ordered Mladic's arrest.
Supporters of the extreme nationalist Radical Party were bussed in to attend the rally.
Right-wing extremists and hooligan groups also urged followers to appear in large numbers.
More than three thousand riot police were deployed around government buildings and Western embassies, fearing that the demonstration could turn violent.
Earlier a group of protesters were detained near the US Embassy.
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 UN tribunal charged Mladic with genocide in 1995, accusing him of orchestrating the massacre of eight thousand Muslim men and boys in Srebrenica and other war crimes during 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.
APTN STORY NUMBER: 690901
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