Mladic was being processed and undergoing a medical examination at the detention center that holds suspects for the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, tribunal spokeswoman Nerma Jelacic said. He will be held in isolation for 48 hours before facing a judge, Jelacic said.
"This was a very, very long day for Ratko Mladic, I believe," said Miranda Sidran-Kamisalic, the Bosnian ambassador to the Netherlands. The 69-year-old ex-general was "very talkative" upon his arrival, she said.
Mladic was the commander of Bosnian Serb forces during the civil war in Bosnia-Herzegovina, the bloodiest of the conflicts that accompanied Yugoslavia's breakup in the 1990s. He faces charges of genocide, crimes against humanity and violations of the laws of war. He spent more than 15 years in hiding before his arrest Thursday in Serbia.
He is accused of leading a campaign of "ethnic cleansing" against Bosnia's Muslim and Croat populations that included the shelling of Sarajevo and the torture, abuse and rape of civilians. More than 200,000 Muslims and Croats died in the 1992-95 conflict, including nearly 8,000 Muslim men and boys slaughtered at Srebrenica in 1995 -- Europe's worst massacre since World War II.
Sidran-Kamisalic said she met with Mladic for about half an hour to discuss any needed consular services. She told CNN the meeting was professional but "incredibly difficult" personally.
"In my city, there were so many thousands of people who were killed," said Sidran-Kamisalic, a former Sarajevo resident. "Not only adults, but also more than 1,600 children were also killed in my city." But, she added, "I did feel that this was the first day that justice really, really almost became tangible."
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