Ratko Mladic, who was convicted of genocide for masterminding the 1995 slaughter of over 8,000 Muslims in Europe’s most horrific massacre since World War II, has passed away.
Mladic’s death was confirmed by his attorney, Dragan Ivetic, on Thursday, but the cause was not disclosed. In his final months, the former general was hospitalized at the UN detention center in a suburb of The Hague.
The massacre in Srebrenica marked the brutal end of a conflict that lasted more than three years. Mladic’s nationalist Serb army relentlessly bombarded the besieged capital Sarajevo with artillery, tanks, mortars, and heavy gunfire, resulting in the deaths of 10,000 people.
The victims from Srebrenica were hastily buried in mass graves over a span of four days in July 1995, with some remains later relocated to remote areas to conceal the evidence of the atrocities committed.
The United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) determined that the objective was “ethnic cleansing” to forcibly remove Bosnian Muslims, Croats, and other non-Serbs to establish a Greater Serbia.
Mladic, along with Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic and Bosnian Serb political leader Radovan Karadzic, were found by the tribunal to have conspired to carry out the ethnic cleansing plan.
At an ICTY hearing in 2014, Mladic, known as the “Butcher of Bosnia,” dismissed the court’s authority. Upon receiving a life sentence in 2017, he vehemently protested, declaring it all to be falsehoods.
Karadzic, also convicted of genocide in 2016, and Mladic were long sought by the ICTY following the end of the war by Western powers. Mladic evaded capture until Milosevic’s ousting in 2000, residing discreetly in Belgrade.
Mladic’s army in Bosnia was notorious for its brutality, with prisoners subjected to inhumane treatment, including starvation, rape, and summary executions. Families of the victims, like Munira Subasic, condemned Mladic for the heinous crimes committed during the war.
He infamously filmed the assault on Srebrenica, duping Dutch UN peacekeepers into believing the residents would be safe under his control. Despite the town’s designation as a “safe area,” Mladic orchestrated its fall, claiming vengeance against Muslim Turks who once ruled the region.
When NATO intervened in 1995, Mladic used UN peacekeepers as human shields to thwart airstrikes. He eventually stepped down in 1996 under Western pressure but remained a revered figure among nationalist Serbs.
Mladic’s arrest in 2011 was uneventful, as he was in poor health, having suffered a heart attack in 2013. His appeals against conviction were denied in 2021, as were requests for compassionate release.
