Ratko Mladic, who was found guilty of genocide for masterminding the 1995 massacre of over 8,000 Muslims in what was Europe’s most horrific atrocity since World War II, has passed away. His lawyer, Dragan Ivetic, confirmed Mladic’s death in UN custody on Thursday without disclosing the cause. Mladic had been receiving medical care in the hospital section of the UN detention facility in a suburb of The Hague in his final months.
The brutal events in Srebrenica marked the culmination of a conflict that spanned over three years, during which Mladic relentlessly bombarded the besieged Sarajevo with artillery, tanks, mortars, and heavy gunfire, resulting in the deaths of 10,000 individuals. The victims of the Srebrenica massacre were hastily buried in mass graves over four days in July 1995, with some remains later relocated to remote areas in an attempt to conceal the evidence of the killings.
According to the United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), the overarching objective was “ethnic cleansing,” aimed at forcibly removing Bosnian Muslims, Croats, and other non-Serbs to establish a Greater Serbia. Mladic, along with Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic and Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic, was deemed part of a criminal plot to execute this plan.
During his trial at the ICTY in 2014, Mladic, known as the “Butcher of Bosnia,” rejected the authority of the court. Upon receiving a life sentence in 2017, he vehemently protested, denouncing the verdict as a fabrication.
Mladic and Karadzic, both convicted of genocide, remained at the top of the ICTY’s wanted list for an extended period following the end of the conflict by Western powers. While Milosevic died in custody in 2006, just before a verdict was reached in his trial for war crimes, Mladic managed to live undisturbed in Belgrade until Milosevic’s ousting in 2000.
The army Mladic commanded in Bosnia was infamous for its mercilessness, with prisoners subjected to various forms of torture and inhumane treatment. Survivors recount harrowing experiences of abuse, including rape and murder, at the hands of Mladic’s forces.
Mladic’s arrest in 2011, after years on the run, marked the end of his reign of terror. Despite health setbacks and failed appeals, he remained unrepentant until the end.