Kenneth Glad
His health had worsened in recent years, prompting repeated requests for medical release. The announcement comes more than three decades after the conflict that led to his conviction.
Ratko Mladic, 84, the former commander of Bosnian Serb forces, died on August 27 while hospitalized in The Hague and serving a life sentence in UN custody, the International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals said.
The UN mechanism said it had opened an inquiry into his death. Mladic was sentenced to life in prison in 2017 after being found guilty of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity. The verdict was upheld four years later.
The genocide charge concerned the July 1995 killings at Srebrenica, a UN-designated safe area in eastern Bosnia. After Bosnian Serb forces captured the enclave, thousands of Bosniak Muslim men and boys were separated from their families and taken away. Around 8,000 were killed in the days that followed, with many of the victims later buried in mass graves.
Convictions covered wider crimes
The tribunal also held Mladic responsible for crimes committed during the siege of Sarajevo, which lasted for years and exposed civilians to repeated attacks. Judges found that Bosnian Serb forces used sniper fire and artillery as part of a campaign intended to terrorize the city’s population.
Another part of the case dealt with efforts to permanently remove Bosnian Muslims and Croats from areas claimed by Bosnian Serb authorities. Prosecutors argued that the campaign was designed to reshape the population of those territories through forced displacement and other crimes.
Mladic was arrested in Serbia in May 2011 after 16 years as a fugitive. He was transferred to The Hague soon afterward to face proceedings before the international tribunal.
During the case, he repeatedly challenged the tribunal’s authority. At a 2014 hearing reported by The Irish Times, he openly rejected the court’s legitimacy.
Release requests drew criticism
HotNews reports that Serbian Justice Minister Nenad Vujic recently renewed a request for Mladic to be released so he could receive medical treatment in Serbia. The appeal came as concerns about his health grew and followed earlier efforts to secure his transfer on medical grounds.
Those requests were strongly opposed by groups representing relatives of people killed at Srebrenica, who argued that releasing him would be deeply unjust to victims’ families.
The Guardian reported that Munira Subasic of the Mothers of Srebrenica said denial of Mladic’s crimes remained a serious problem decades after the war. The newspaper also cited Human Rights Watch official Elizabeth Evenson, who said governments still had a responsibility to pursue justice and accountability for wartime atrocities long after they were committed.
Sources: International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals, The Irish Times, HotNews, The Guardian
