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Serbian Nationalists Rally for War Crimes Fugitive


Several hundred extreme nationalists have rallied in Serbia's capital, Belgrade, in support of war crimes fugitive Ratko Mladic, who is wanted on genocide charges for his role in the 1990s Balkan Conflict.

Members of the Serbian Radical Party and their supporters, many dressed in T-shirts with images of the Bosnian Serb army general, Saturday waved nationalist flags and shouted nationalist slogans.

The crowd cheered when the party's secretary Aleksandar Vucic posted a fake street sign reading Ratko Mladic's Boulevard on the street recently named after assassinated pro-western Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic. No arrests were made at the rally.

A Serbian court on Wednesday convicted 12 people for the assassination of the late prime minister.

The Serbian Radical Party won the most votes in the January election, but not a parliamentary majority. The party's leader, Vojislav Seselj, is a war crimes suspect, jailed in The Hague.

Mladic has been at large for more than a decade after the Hague-based international war crimes tribunal indicted him for his role in the 1995 genocide of eight thousand Srebrenica Muslims. Many nationalists Serbs consider him a hero.

Mladic's arrest is a key condition for Serbia's candidacy to join the European Union.

Some information for this report provided by Reuters and AFP.

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