The United Nations war crimes tribunal for the former Yugoslavia has rejected a request by the leader of the Serb Radical Party to discontinue proceedings against him, finding he had failed to prove that his right to trial within a reasonable period had been violated.

Top United Nations officials have joined the international tribunal set up to try those responsible for the worst crimes committed during the Balkan conflicts of the 1990s in welcoming today’s arrest in Serbia of Goran Hadžić, who has been at large for more than seven years and was the court’s last remaining fugitive.

The Security Council today extended the terms of judges serving on the United Nations tribunal created to try perpetrators of the worst crimes committed during conflicts in the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s to ensure that the court is adequately staffed to complete its work.

The arrest of Ratko Mladic after he spent 16 years on the run demonstrates that “ending impunity requires a united front,” the chief prosecutor of the United Nations war crimes tribunal for the Balkan conflicts said today, pledging that the Bosnian Serb wartime military figure would receive a fair trial.