Former Bosnian Serb military commander Ratko Mladic, convicted of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes during the 1992-1995 Bosnian War, died on Thursday while serving a life sentence in The Hague. Reports put his age at 85, although there has long been disagreement over his exact date of birth.
Mladic commanded the Bosnian Serb Army during some of the war’s worst atrocities, most notably the Srebrenica genocide of July 1995, in which more than 8,000 Bosniak Muslim men and boys were killed after Bosnian Serb forces overran the UN-designated safe area. International courts have recognised the massacre as genocide.
He was also convicted over the years-long siege of Sarajevo, during which civilians were subjected to sustained shelling and sniper fire, as well as persecution, extermination, murder, deportation, forcible transfer and the taking of UN personnel hostage.
The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia sentenced Mladic to life imprisonment in 2017 after finding him guilty on 10 of 11 charges. His conviction and sentence were upheld on appeal by the UN International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals in 2021.
Mladic remained a fugitive for nearly 16 years after the Bosnian War, before being arrested in Serbia in May 2011 and transferred to The Hague to face trial.
His health had deteriorated considerably in recent years, prompting repeated efforts by his family and officials in Serbia and Bosnia’s Republika Srpska to secure his release or transfer on medical grounds. His latest request for early release was rejected just one day before his death.
The Srebrenica killings remain Europe’s worst mass atrocity since the Second World War. Victims were buried in mass graves, with some remains subsequently moved to secondary sites in attempts to conceal evidence of the killings.
Mladic never accepted responsibility for the crimes for which he was convicted and repeatedly rejected the legitimacy and findings of the international tribunal.