Ratko Mladić, Bosnian Serb commander convicted of genocide, dies at 84
Ratko Mladić, the Bosnian Serb military commander convicted of genocide and other wartime atrocities, has died at the age of 84 in a United Nations detention unit in The Hague.
The UN court that tried him confirmed the death on Thursday and said Dutch authorities had opened an investigation. The court’s president also ordered a full inquiry into the circumstances of his death, the tribunal said.
Mladić was serving a life sentence handed down in 2017, when judges found him guilty of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity for his role in the wars that tore apart the former Yugoslavia between 1992 and 1995. The conviction was upheld on appeal in 2021.
He spent 16 years on the run before being found in rural Serbia in 2011. From his arrest until his death, he was held in The Hague, where the UN’s International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia had indicted him for orchestrating some of the worst atrocities seen in Europe since World War II.
Mladić, known widely as the “Butcher of Bosnia,” commanded Bosnian Serb forces fighting against Bosnian Croat and Bosniak — Bosnian Muslim — armies. Under his orders, troops carried out what became known as ethnic cleansing, driving non-Serbs from their homes across Bosnia-Herzegovina. His forces besieged Sarajevo for nearly four years, killing more than 10,000 people, and in July 1995 they massacred around 8,000 Bosniak men and boys in Srebrenica, the worst single atrocity of the Bosnian conflict.
In recent months, his health had sharply declined. During a May court hearing, judges rejected a request for early release, agreeing that his medical situation was “dire” but saying he was receiving “comprehensive and compassionate treatment” in custody. His lawyers said at the time that he had been largely bedbound, had spent time in a wheelchair, and had suffered a suspected stroke that left him almost unable to speak.
Mladić, who never recognized the UN court, had been held at The Hague detention facility since 2011. He remained unrepentant to the end, and his death has reignited the deep divisions the Bosnian war left behind.
Hasan Hasanović, a Srebrenica survivor who lost his twin brother and father in the massacre, told the BBC World Service’s Newshour program that Mladić’s death “does not bring closure because the people who were killed in Srebrenica cannot come back.” He added: “His death is just a biological necessity, and it doesn’t bring to an end the political project and military project that created that legacy of genocide.”
In Bosnia, the ethnic boundaries drawn during the war still shape the country’s political system, and genocide denial remains common among Serb leaders. Milorad Dodik, the Bosnian Serb separatist leader, told Reuters that Mladić “was respected by Serbian people. As a commander he stood to defend Serbs.”
In Serbia’s capital, Belgrade, some residents echoed that version of his legacy. “I genuinely believe he protected the Serbian people, because after all, that was his duty,” one man told Reuters. Another said it was “a massive shame” that Mladić had been imprisoned at all.
With Mladić gone, one of the most recognizable figures from the Yugoslav wars has left the stage. But the harder question — what his country does with the violent memory he leaves behind — remains open.