Bosnian Serb army commander Gen. Ratko Mladic is seen in Belgrade in this 1992 file photo. (AP Photo/Srdjan Ilic) 
By DUSAN STOJANOVIC and JOVANA GECBELGRADE, Serbia -- Former Bosnian Serb military commander Ratko Mladic was captured in a routine raid as he headed out to his garden for a pre-dawn walk, three Serbian police officials told The Associated Press on Friday. The officials said about two dozen masked, black-clad members of a team of special police had no specific intelligence that Mladic was inside a relative's yellow brick house. The home was one of four hit simultaneously Thursday in the tiny northern Serbian village of Lazarevo.
It was the first visit to the village by police who have been conducting similar operations throughout Serbia for years in the hunt for Mladic, who went underground seven years after his 1995 indictment by the U.N. war crimes court on charges of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes.
Speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the information, the Serbian police officials told the AP that Mladic identified himself immediately after his arrest, handing over two pistols that he was carrying without a fight.Mladic was taken to a jail cell at Serbia's war-crimes court where, a judicial official told the AP, he was given strawberries Friday after requesting them along with a television set and classic Russian novels including some by Leo Tolstoy.
The court ruled that Mladic can be extradited to the tribunal despite defense claims that he is too sick to face trial. The decision means Mladic could be sent to The Hague as early as Monday if the court overrules a planned defense appeal.
The judicial official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the situation, said Mladic had also asked about receiving money from his military pension, and requested a visit to the Belgrade grave of his daughter Ana, who killed herself in 1994.
If Mladic is extradited, he will argue that he's innocent of war crimes charges, the suspect's son indicated after visiting the former fugitive in jail.
"His stand is that he's not guilty of what he's being accused of," Darko Mladic told reporters outside the Belgrade court.
Mladic was the top commander of the Bosnian Serb army during Bosnia's 1992-95 war, which left more than 100,000 people dead and drove another 1.8 million from their homes. Thousands of Muslims and Croats were slain, tortured or expelled by a campaign to purge the region of non-Serbs.
Court spokeswoman Maja Kovacevic said Mladic refused to accept the Hague indictment during Friday's extradition hearing.
Defense lawyer Milos Saljic said Mladic "jumped from subject to subject, and spoke inconsistently," during the hearing. He said Mladic needed medical care and "should not be moved in such a state." He demanded that an "independent medical commission" examine Mladic.
Mladic's son said the former fugitive suffered two strokes while on the run for 16 years, has a partially paralyzed right hand and can barely speak.
Serbian war crimes prosecutors argued that the defense was simply trying to delay the extradition of Mladic, who appeared to understand the proceedings. A tribunal spokeswoman said from The Hague that it was capable of dealing with any health problems.
Mladic is taking a lot of medicine, but "responds very rationally to everything that is going on," deputy war crimes prosecutor Bruno Vekaric said.
The chief prosecutor of the Yugoslav war crimes tribunal said he was considering whether to put Mladic on trial together with former Bosnian Serb political leader Radovan Karadzic.
Serge Brammertz said that ideally he would have both men in one trial, facing charges of jointly orchestrating Serb atrocities throughout the 1992-95 Bosnian war.
Karadzic's ongoing trial started in 2009 and a Mladic trial would not begin for months, but Brammertz said he is confident he has "strong and credible evidence" against him.
The operation to arrest Mladic began around 5 a.m. Thursday with four white jeeps carrying the special Serbian policemen into Lazarevo while most of its 2,000 residents were still asleep, police officials said.
Mladic was awake inside the house with a rusty white fence, unable to sleep because his body ached from ailments he has suffered over the 16 years he had spent on the run, the officials said.
A European diplomatic official who has been briefed on the search for Mladic said investigators had recently stopped looking for a high-level support network that Mladic was believed to have in the Serbian army and intelligence services. Instead, they began looking closer at the possible locations of distant relatives.
The switch in tactics came as it became increasingly clear that Serbia could not join the EU unless Mladic was arrested, the official said.
Serbia's police chief, Ivica Dacic, said new police leadership had also increased the number of people hunting for Mladic by 50 percent.
Dacic said Mladic turned out not to have had that large support network.
"Mladic lived alone with his relatives, without any financial means," the chief told reporters Friday. "The stories that he had a major ring of security and many helpers turned out not to be true."
While in Belgrade in the late 90s and early 2000s, Mladic showed up at soccer games, dined in plush restaurants and frequented elite cafes.
Although he went underground in 2002, as recently as 2004 Mladic was seen driving a battered, boxy Yugo car in Belgrade - without the six black-clad bodyguards with shaven heads who had typically escorted him.
The Serbian police officials said they had learned that Mladic moved into the largely Bosnian Serb village of Lazarevo about two years ago, figuring he could be safe with his relatives there.
Mladic was about to venture into the grassy yard for some fresh air when four men in masks and black fatigues without insignia jumped over the fence and burst into the house, grabbing the frail-looking man and forcing him to the floor face down.
"Identify yourself," shouted one of the policemen. "I'm Ratko Mladic," he replied in a whisper. "Don't do something funny," the officer said demanding the two guns he was carrying. He complied, according to the three officials.
Mladic was pushed into one of the jeeps, which drove full speed out of the village toward the capital, Belgrade, with dust flying, the officials said.
A police photo of Mladic showed him looking hollow-cheeked and shrunken after a decade and a half on the run, a far cry from the beefy commander accused of personally orchestrating some of the worst horrors of the Balkan wars.
The photo taken moments after his arrest shows a clean-shaven Mladic with thinning hair and wearing a navy blue baseball hat. He looks up with wide eyes, as if in surprise.
"He might have aged and lost weight but the bloodthirsty look in his eyes is the same as the one he had in Srebrenica in 1995," said Sabra Kolenovic, who lost her husband and son in the massacre.
"He should be crossed out from the list of human beings."
Serbian officials said no one will pick up the $10 million (7 million euro) reward for Mladic's arrest because police were not acting on a tip when they arrested him.
Serbia's defense minister said Mladic's whereabouts were unknown to officials for at least the last four years and that an investigation will determine where he was hiding and who assisted him.
The arrest was trumpeted by the government as a victory for a country worthy of European Union membership and Western embrace.
European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton hailed the arrest but said Serbia's path to the EU still "requires a lot of work.
Serbia's pro-Western government has announced plans to win EU candidate status by the end of 2011.
The EU has urged Serbia to move ahead with judicial reform, crack down on crime and corruption, respect human rights, change electoral laws, create a safe business environment and for results in ongoing talks with Kosovo, its former province.
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Aida Cerkez in Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Slobodan Lekic in Brussels contributed to this report.
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