Vucic: Serbia Ready to Help Mladic Family With Burial

Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic said on Friday that Belgrade has not received any information from The Hague regarding funeral arrangements for former Bosnian Serb military commander Ratko Mladic, who died in a Dutch hospital on Thursday.

Speaking at a fair in the town of Osecina, Vucic said Serbian teams have been sent to The Hague to assist with logistics and to maintain contact with the family. "We still don't know anything," he said, adding that no details have been received from the UN court.

Vucic also criticised the UN tribunal's decision to deny Mladic an early release, saying the refusal meant he would die in prison. "They did not allow him to die in Serbia, to die where he wanted," Vucic said. "That is uncivilized behavior that was unprecedented and without excuse."

The president said that if the family wishes for Mladic to be buried on Serbian territory, the government would help ensure it is done in a dignified manner.

Mladic, who was sentenced to life in prison in 2017 for war crimes committed during the 1990s conflicts in the former Yugoslavia, had been in custody since 2011 after years on the run. He was one of the most prominent figures of the conflict, which left more than 100,000 people dead and displaced over a million.

More than three decades after the wars, opinions about Mladic's role remain deeply divided across the region.