Ratko Mladić, who faced NATO in Yugoslav wars, dies at 84
Former Bosnian Serb military commander Ratko Mladić has died aged 84 while serving a life sentence for genocide and war crimes, Serbian media report. The UN tribunal had not publicly confirmed his death at the time of publication.
According to Informer TV, Mladić died on Thursday at the UN detention unit in The Hague. Reuters carried the report, but Serbia’s NIN magazine said the International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals had yet to release an official statement.
His family and lawyers had repeatedly sought his early release on humanitarian grounds, as he had been in poor health. The latest request was rejected days before the reported death.
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Who was Ratko Mladić?
Mladić commanded the Army of Republika Srpska during most of the 1992–95 Bosnian war. A UN tribunal convicted him in 2017 of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes, sentencing him to life in prison.
The judges found that forces under his command terrorised Sarajevo through shelling and sniper attacks and took UN personnel hostage. He was also convicted over the 1995 Srebrenica massacre, in which more than 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys were systematically murdered and thousands of civilians were forcibly displaced.
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Indicted in 1995, Mladić remained a fugitive for almost 16 years before his arrest in Serbia in May 2011 and transfer to The Hague. An appeals chamber upheld his convictions and life sentence in 2021.
