ReutersConvicted Bosnian Serb war criminal Ratko Mladić has died in a UN prison at The Hague aged 84.
He was jailed for life in 2017 for genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity during the wars in the former Yugoslavia in 1992-95.
After the Bosnian war, he went on the run for 16 years until he was finally tracked down in rural Serbia in 2011 and put on trial in the Dutch city.
The sentence for the man known as the “Butcher of Bosnia” was upheld on appeal by the UN court in 2021. He was being given palliative care in the hospital of the UN detention facility, where he died.
In a statement confirming the death on Thursday, the UN Court said Dutch authorities have begun an investigation.
It added that the court’s top judge”has ordered a full inquiry into the circumstances” of Mladić’s death.
In May, the court rejected a bid for his release from jail as he was nearing the end of his life.
The judge agreed his situation was “dire” but ruled that he was receiving “comprehensive and compassionate treatment” in prison.
Mladić’s lawyers said at the time that he had already been bedbound or in a wheelchair for a long time and later had suffered a suspected stroke that left him almost unable to speak.
Mladić – who never recognised the UN court – had been held at The Hague detention facility since 2011.
He commanded Bosnian Serb forces in the 1990s against the Bosnian Croat and Bosniak (Bosnian Muslim) armies.
During the war his troops committed what became known as “ethnic cleansing” in Bosnia-Herzegovina in a bid to expel the non-Serbian population by force. They besieged the main city of Sarajevo with the deaths of more than 10,000 people, and carried out the massacre of 8,000 men and boys at Srebrenica.
Hasan Hasanović , a Srebrenica survivor who lost his twin brother and father in the massacre, told the BBC World Service’s Newshour programme that Mladić’s death “does not bring closure because the people who were killed in Srebrenica cannot come back”.
“His death is just a biological necessity, and it doesn’t bring to an end the political project and military project that created that legacy of genocide. And we now live with the consequences of a divided country, genocide denial,” said Hasanović, who now works at the Srebrenica memorial centre.
However, Bosnian Serb separatist leader Milorad Dodik told Reuters news agency that Mladić “was respected by Serbian people. As a commander he stood to defend Serbs.”
In Serbia’s capital Belgrade, some local residents also praised him.
“I genuinely believe he protected the Serbian people, because after all, that was his duty,” a man called Milan was quoted as saying by Reuters.
Another man, Vasilije, said: “It’s a massive shame, it really is. Personally, I think it’s a total injustice that he was even thrown in The Hague.”
