Bosnian Serb Warlord Ratko Mladic Dies in Prison at 84

Ratko Mladic, the former Bosnian Serb military commander convicted of genocide and other war crimes, has died in prison at the age of 84, according to Serbian state television and the official Bosnian Serb broadcaster.

The reports said Mladic died in a United Nations prison hospital in The Hague, Netherlands. A family member, speaking on condition of anonymity, confirmed the death and said Mladic's son, Darko, was traveling to The Hague. UN court officials said they could not immediately confirm the news.

Mladic was sentenced to life imprisonment in 2017 by the UN tribunal for war crimes committed during the Yugoslav wars of the 1990s. He had been in custody since 2011, after years on the run.

During the Bosnian conflict, Mladic commanded Bosnian Serb forces that laid siege to Sarajevo, established detention camps, and carried out mass killings. In 1995, his troops slaughtered more than 8,000 Muslim men and boys in Srebrenica, an act recognized as genocide — the only such case in Europe since World War II.

Mladic remained defiant throughout his trial, shouting at judges when the life sentence was handed down. He was seen by many Serbs as a patriot, but never expressed remorse for the atrocities committed under his command.

Born in 1942 in the Bosnian village of Bozinovici, Mladic rose through the ranks of the Yugoslav communist army before siding with Serb nationalists as the federation collapsed. He was backed by Serbia's then-president Slobodan Milosevic, who also died in UN custody in 2006 while on trial.