Bosnian Serbs mourn Ratko Mladic, convicted war criminal, after prison death
Bosnian Serbs in Pale mourn Ratko Mladic, the convicted war criminal who died in a UN prison hospital at age 83.
Residents of Pale, a town near Sarajevo that served as a Bosnian Serb stronghold during the 1990s conflict, gathered on Thursday to mourn the death of Ratko Mladic. The former general, who was serving a life sentence for war crimes, died in a United Nations prison hospital in The Hague at the age of 83.
Mladic commanded Bosnian Serb forces during the ethnic war in Bosnia that began in 1992. His troops laid siege to Sarajevo, shelling the city and targeting civilians with sniper fire. In 1995, his forces killed more than 8,000 Muslim men and boys in Srebrenica, an act later recognized as genocide and the worst massacre in Europe since World War II.
The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia convicted Mladic in 2017 and sentenced him to life in prison. He had been in custody since 2011 after evading capture for years.
Despite the scale of the atrocities, some Bosnian Serbs continue to view Mladic as a patriot. Janko Seslija, a former Bosnian Serb soldier, said he believed Mladic was murdered in prison and called him an honorable man and commander. Milanka Cicovic, a Pale resident, said Mladic was the only one who cared for his people and the creation of their entity. Nenad Tadic described him as one of the greatest historical figures of the Serbian people.
A family member confirmed the death to wire services, adding that Mladic's son, Darko, was traveling to The Hague. The conflict Mladic helped drive left more than 100,000 people dead and displaced over a million others.