Former Bosnian Serb military commander Ratko Mladic will be facing genocide charges at the U.N. war crimes tribunal within days, Reuters reported. 69-year old Mladic was extradited to the Netherlands from Serbia on Tuesday after 16 years on the run.

The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia accused Mladic of blockading of the Bosnian capital Sarajevo for 43 months and the massacre of 8,000 Muslim men and boys in the town of Srebrenica during the 1992-95 Bosnian war.

Although Mladic's lawyer and family argued that Mladic was mentally unstable and too sick to be extradited to the tribunal, their appeal was rejected by Serbia's war crimes court on Tuesday. Within hours, he was sent to Netherlands on a plane.

Bosnia's ambassador in the Netherlands Miranda Sidran-Kamisalic said she had met Mladic and he was in good health.

Mladic's extradition will help Serbia's progress towards candidacy for European Union membership. It will also serve as an important warning to other leaders like Libya's Muammar Gaddafi and Sudan's Omar Al Bashir, who have been indicted on similar charges, Reuters' report said.

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