NEW YORK — For years, Gac Filipaj mopped floors, cleaned toilets and took out trash at Columbia University. A refugee from war-torn Yugoslavia, he eked out a living working for the elite Ivy League school. But Sunday was payback time: The 52-year-old janitor donned a cap and gown to graduate with a bachelor’s degree in classics.
BELGRADE, Serbia — Serbia extradited Ratko Mladic to the U.N. war crimes tribunal on Tuesday, 16 years after the massacre of 8,000 Muslim men and boys by troops under his command forced the West’s hand in the Bosnian war. Associated Press reporters at the Belgrade airport saw the Falcon jet take of from the Belgrade airport at 5:40 p.m. (1540 GMT), minutes after Serbian Justice Minister Snezana Malovic said Mladic was on the airplane. The extradition to The Hague, Netherlands came the same day judges; received and rejected Mladic’s appeal to stop the hand-over on the grounds that the 69-year-old is not mentally and physically fit to stand trial. Mladic is charged at the tribunal for atrocities committed by his Serb troops during Bosnia’s 1992–5 war, including the notorious Srebrenica massacre, the worst atrocity against civilians in Europe since World War II. Mladic attorney Milos Saljic visited him in his jail cell in the early afternoon and said the ex-general was crying and very emotional during what he called a farewell visit by his wife and sister. They brought him a big suitcase with clothing he will need in The Hague, Saljic said.