Former Bosnian Serb general Ratko Mladic, convicted of war crimes, has died at the age of 85.
He was arrested on May 26, 2011 in Lazarevo, Serbia, and a few days later he was transferred to The Hague. Born in 1943 in Bosnia, Mladic had undertaken a military career in the Yugoslav army, achieving increasingly important positions. With the dissolution of Yugoslavia he participated in the fighting in Croatia and, in 1992, became commander of the Army of the Republic of Srpska during the war in Bosnia. In 2017 he was sentenced to life in prison on 10 of 11 charges. The sentence became final in 2021.
Mladic has had several strokes over the past few years. He died while in the hospital of the Scheveningen detention center in The Hague, where he had been undergoing palliative care for some time. The former Bosnian Serb general was serving a life sentence. Mladic was indicted in 1995 by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia for genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes committed during the 1992-1995 Bosnian conflict. Among the main facts for which he was convicted were the Srebrenica genocide, the siege of Sarajevo and the persecution and deportation of Bosnian populations. After the war ended, Mladic remained in hiding for around 16 years, becoming one of Europe’s most wanted fugitives.