News of the arrest of Ratko Mladic ( 69 ) brings a close to the worst European human rights atrocity since the Nazi Holocaust during the second world war. The trio responsible for the ethnic cleansing, concentration camps - and the 1995 Srebrenica massacre, where over eight thousand Muslim men and boys were lined up and machine gunned - are no longer at liberty.
Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic was stripped of his disguises and put before a court - but died before a conviction could be recorded. Radovan Karadzic is still serving time in prison - and now the general leading the Serb forces - Ratko Mladic has emerged from a sixteen year hiding to face retribution for his crimes.
The break-up of Yugoslavia saw the siege of Sarajevo, followed by a reign of terror in which people were condemned for simply being ethnic or having a different religion than others. Mladic led a brutal army that used rape as a weapon of war and imposed terror to kill others or drive them from their homes.
For many Serbs, Mladic is still a hero and there is no question that his sixteen years of liberty was a period when he was protected by both his old comrades - and the state. As these years rolled by the Serbs became more desperate to end the standoff with the west - and the prime reason to be denied membership of the European Union - was the fact that war criminal Mladic was still on the run.
It seems that the Serbs have swallowed their principles - and handed him over. EU access is more important than sheltering an aged criminal- but there will still be desperate efforts to shield him from the International court of justice at the Hague - and a contrived escape is not out of the question.
With citizens who still hail Mladic as a hero and applaud the crimes against humanity that were carried out under his orders - a question hangs in the air as to whether such a nation should ever be allowed to mix with those nations that form the EU.
Perhaps a decision should await the final conclusion of the Mladic trial !
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