A Belgrade court has rejected a request from the family of fugitive war crimes suspect Ratko Mladic to officially declare him dead, citing procedural flaws, local electronic media said on Wednesday.
A spokeswoman for the court was quoted as saying that no appeal had been lodged against the court ruling, but that the Mladic family had the right to file a new request.
The request was filed on June 16, when the lawyer for the family, Milos Saljic, said that the family had decided to file such a request because it had had no information about Mladic for seven years and that Mladic had had serious health problems which he could not have survived without serious medical care.
"Mladic survived a massive brain stroke back in 1996, and he also suffered from coronary and gastroenterological problems. If we take into account the difficult conditions he could have been exposed to and the lack of medical care, he may not be alive any more," Saljic said at the time.
Ratko Mladic, former Bosnian Serb military commander, is wanted by the UN war crimes tribunal in The Hague on charges of genocide and crimes against humanity committed by his troops during the 1992-1995 Bosnian war.
