Ratko Mladic to file appeal against Hague extradition

His family says Mladic is too sick to go, but the Serbian government is widely expected to reject the appeal.

Mladic is accused of committing war crimes during the Bosnian war, including the 1995 Srebrenica massacre of 7,500 Muslim men and boys.

Thousands of people rallied in Belgrade on Sunday against Mladic's arrest.

The demonstrators hailed the general as a Serbian national hero. About 100 people were arrested during clashes with police in the Serbian capital.

Ratko Mladic's family and lawyers are expected to file the appeal on his behalf on Monday.

A BBC correspondent in Belgrade says it could take up to three days for the ministry of justice to decide on the appeal but he adds that it is likely to be rejected earlier, with Serbia's deputy war crimes prosecutor already dismissing the claim of ill health as a delaying tactic.

The Hague tribunal says it will not specify on which day Mladic will arrive, but a BBC correspondent says there is speculation he could be sent on a night-time flight, without prior warning.

Mladic's lawyer, Milos Saljic, said on Sunday that his client's health had deteriorated, despite an earlier decision by a Belgrade court that he was fit to be handed over to the UN court.

Serbia's deputy war crimes prosecutor Bruno Vekaric said that "my impression is that he is acting in a very composed manner".

"As far as his mental state is concerned, believe me, he looks more normal than many others," Vekaric said.

He also dismissed as ungrounded media reports that Mladic had hearing difficulties and that his right arm was paralysed.

At least 7,000 supporters of Mladic rallied in central Belgrade on Sunday to hear speeches from nationalist politicians and decry Mladic's arrest.

"Co-operation with The Hague tribunal represents treason," said Lidija Vukicevic of the Serbian Radical Party.

"This is a protest against the shameful arrest of the Serbian hero."

The demonstrators also denounced Serbia's pro-Western President Boris Tadic.

Mladic's arrest is considered crucial to Serbia's bid to join the European Union.

He evaded capture for 16 years after the end of the Bosnian conflict - just one of the ethnic wars unleashed in the 1990s by the break up of Yugoslavia.

As the rally ended, the mood turned ugly. Some of the demonstrators clashed with police, throwing stones and flares.

About 3,000 people, many of them former Bosnian Serb soldiers, earlier held a separate protest against Mladic's arrest in the Bosnian village of Kalinovik, where he was born.

On Sunday, Mladic's son, Darko, said that despite the tribunal's indictment, his father had told him he was not responsible for the killings in Srebrenica, committed after his troops overran the town.

Mladic was seized in the village of Lazarevo, about 80km north of Belgrade.

Following the arrest of Radovan Karadzic in 2008, Mladic had become the most prominent Bosnian war crimes suspect still at large.

He was indicted by the UN war crimes tribunal in The Hague in 1995 for genocide over the killings that July at Srebrenica - the worst single atrocity in Europe since World War II - and other alleged crimes.

Having lived freely in the Serbian capital, Belgrade, he disappeared after the arrest of former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic in 2001.

President Tadic has said the arrest brought the country and the region closer to reconciliation, and opened the doors to EU membership for Serbia