The International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals (IRMCT) in the Hague launched a probe into how a man convicted of war crimes in the first instance managed to contact the audience in Serbia via a TV programme, violating the IRMCT rules on the detainee's contact with media, Radio Free Europe (RFE) reported on Friday.

Ratko Mladic, the military leader of the Bosnian Serbs during the 1992-1995 war in Bosnia and Herzegovina, convicted by The Hague Tribunal to life imprisonment in the first instance for 10 out of 11 charges, including Srebrenica genocide, joined a live morning programme of the Belgrade Happy TV by phone.

His son Darko, who was in the TV studio, called Mladic asking him to address the public.

Besides Darko, the other guests in the studio were the ultra-nationalist leader of the Serbian Radical Party (SRS) Vojislav Seselj, also a convicted war criminal, and Pavel Dorohin, a member of Russia’s Duma.

Mladic greeted his son, Seselj and Dorohin who he addressed in Russian, telling him to send regards to the Russian Communist Party and to keep an eye on NATO which “is expanding close to Russia.”

“In accordance to the Mechanism’s rules on detention and regulations regarding the communication surveillance, all detainees have the right to communicate with family members,” the IRMCT told the RFE.

 It added that “any contact with media has to be approved in advance in line with the Detention rulebook. Since the detainees are not allowed to communicate with media without approval, this office is now investigating if a detention rule has been violated regarding the notification of the detainee.”

Besides the Srebrenica genocide, Mladic is charged with persecution, extinction, a crime against humanity, murder, inhumane moving of population, deportation, terror and illegal attacks on civilians and taking hostages.

He was cleared of other genocide charges.