Butcher Of Bosnia
Ratko Mladic, the former Bosnian Serb military chief convicted of war crimes for his role in the 1995 Srebrenica massacre, died in hospital on Thursday, according to a United Nations international tribunal.
Mladic, who had suffered several strokes in recent months, was serving a life sentence in The Hague for genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity after overseeing the Srebrenica slaughter, Europe's worst act of bloodshed since World War II. His conviction led the media to dub him the "Butcher of Bosnia". The 1992-1995 war left around 100,000 people dead and 2.2 million displaced.
Mladic was the military face of a brutal trio, led on the political side by ex-Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic and former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic. Serbian state officials and Mladic's family had appealed for his release due to his failing health, but the Hague tribunal rejected those calls.
A representative of the Mothers of Srebrenica victims' association, reacting to the death of Mladic, told AFP that his name would always "symbolise genocide". "That will never be erased from his name," said Sehida Abdurahmanovic, who believes her missing brother was among those killed in Srebrenica.
UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres said he stood "in solidarity with the victims, survivors and their families who suffered the crimes for which Mr Mladic was found guilty".
In the war's most infamous atrocity, Serb forces under Mladic's command executed 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys who had sought shelter in Srebrenica, which was meant to be a UN-protected enclave. Their bodies were dumped in mass graves, many of which were dug back up and reburied to hide the evidence. The few who escaped told harrowing stories of murder, torture and rape.
In November 1995, the International Criminal Tribunal indicted Mladic, who evaded capture for another 16 years. At first he led a life of luxury, pampered by the military in Serbia, where some to this day see him as a hero. But pressure mounted after Milosevic fell from power in 2000. Mladic was finally arrested in May 2011 and transferred to The Hague. He was convicted in 2017, with the life sentence upheld on appeal in 2021.
On the streets of Sarajevo, Hava Suljic told AFP she welcomed the news. "I'm delighted to know there is one less war criminal walking around in this world," said Suljic, a Bosnian Muslim from Srebrenica.
Almasa Salihovic, a spokeswoman for the Srebrenica Memorial Centre, told AFP that "thousands from Srebrenica never had the chance to grow old." She herself lost her 18-year-old brother in July 1995. "That man sent him to his death with his orders," she said. "For us, he is a convicted war criminal and will remain as such in our history."