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Asked by reporters whether intelligence and military services were helping him, Dacic said: “If they were giving him help, then it was disaster because he lived in very difficult conditions- sick, and alone.”
Dacic said that the arrest of Mladic came as result of a strategy adopted by the country’s action team six months ago.
War crimes fugitive Ratko Mladic was arrested by Serbian police alone, and without help of any foreign services, Interior Minister Dacic said on Friday.
According to him, Mladic’s location of the northern Serbian village of Lazarevo was first searched on Thursday. Four houses of Mladic’s relatives who had been followed for several months were also searched, he added.
Dacic reiterated that Mladic had offered no resistance during the arrest in the presence of his relatives, nor had he used a false identity. He had an expired ID card and the Serbian military ID with him at the time.
“When the police entered the house and asked him if he was Ratko Mladic, he said, ‘Congratulations, you’ve found what you’re looking for,'” Dacic said.
Dacic reiterated that five of Mladic’s relatives and supporters were detained and released on Thursday, adding that was now for the court to decide whether they will be prosecuted.
He went on to say that Mladic had not been moving around the village, and that no one had seen him. “He lived in very difficult conditions – financial and life ones,” Dacic noted.
Dacic also confirmed that he was in poor health and that his right arm was partially disabled as a resulf of a stroke, but he stressed that he was being kept under constant medical supervision.
