Bosnian Serb General Ratko Mladic, who was serving a life sentence for genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity committed during the 1992-1995 war in Bosnia and Herzegovina, has died at the age of 84, according to Reuters and Associated Press reports. A United Nations official and Serbian state television confirmed that Mladic passed away in a UN prison hospital in The Hague, Netherlands.
A family member confirmed the reports to the Associated Press, stating that Mladic’s son, Darko Mladic, was traveling to The Hague following the news. Mladic was convicted in 2017 by a UN tribunal for orchestrating the 1995 Srebrenica massacre, which claimed the lives of at least 8,000 Bosniak men and boys in Europe`s worst atrocity since World War II. The tribunal described his crimes as among the most heinous known to humankind.
The former military commander spent years as a fugitive before his arrest in Serbia in 2011 and subsequent transfer to the international tribunal in the Netherlands. Throughout his imprisonment, international judges repeatedly rejected appeals for his early release on health grounds. His death closes a significant chapter in the legal accountability surrounding the devastating conflicts that marked the breakup of Yugoslavia.
