Lawyer: Mladic Undergoes Hernia Surgery

Former Bosnian Serb military chief Ratko Mladic in The Hague

Ratko Mladic's Serbian lawyer says the war crimes suspect had hernia surgery and is now feeling fine at the detention unit of the UN tribunal at The Hague.

Milos Saljic said Mladic underwent the operation on August 17. He gave no other details on the surgery, but said Mladic had called him on August 18 saying he was feeling fine.

A spokeswoman for the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), Nerma Jelacic, refused to give details of Mladic's health, citing the confidentiality of medical records, but said Mladic had not left the detention center.

The wartime Bosnian Serb commander, 68, was arrested in May in Serbia after 16 years as a fugitive and extradited to the ICTY to face charges of genocide and war crimes committed during Bosnia's 1992-95 war.

On August 17, the prosecution asked that Mladic be tried first on genocide charges for the 1995 massacre of some 8,000 Muslim men and boys in Srebrenica, and then for other war crimes, citing the need to speed the trial.

compiled from agency reports