PHOTOS/ Ratko Mladić: from a figure praised as a hero in Serbia to an accused perpetrator of the Srebrenica genocide

While Ratko Mladić continues to be viewed by many people in Serbia as a hero, in the West he is considered a war criminal and is facing trial in The Hague.

The former commander of the Bosnian Serb army was arrested in May of this year and subsequently transferred to The Hague, where he is accused of crimes against humanity committed during the Balkan wars of the 1990s.

Mladić’s name is linked to the Srebrenica massacre, in which Bosnian Serb forces killed at least 8,300 Bosniak Muslim men in 1995. The attack took place even though the United Nations had declared the city a safe area and a Dutch peacekeeping unit was stationed there.

Before his arrest, Mladić had been wanted for years. However, he also had support at high levels, while a large part of public opinion in Serbia continues to regard him as a heroic figure.

The Bosnian Serb forces operating under his command are also responsible for the siege of Sarajevo. The siege lasted almost four years and caused the deaths of thousands of people.

In one of the photographs, Mladić appears as a devoted husband and father, together with his wife Bosa and daughter Ana in 1992. Later, Ana would take her own life after learning that her father had been accused of war crimes.

During the offensive in Srebrenica, Mladić tried to pressure and intimidate the Dutch peacekeepers tasked with protecting the city. In a photograph dated July 12, 1995, during the Bosnian Serb attack, he can be seen raising a toast with Dutch commander Tom Karremans.

Other photographs show a Bosnian Serb military vehicle passing through the deserted streets of Srebrenica, one week after the city was captured.

Efforts to determine the identities of the victims whose remains have been discovered in mass graves near Srebrenica are still continuing today.

Support for Ratko Mladić remains present in Serbia. At the end of May, in Belgrade, members of a radical political party organized a rally in support of the arrested general.

Mladić was popular among Bosnian Serb soldiers. According to accounts, when he saw some of them soaked and shivering from the cold, he got out of his vehicle, poured water over his own body and set off with them toward the next base.

The general remained in hiding for 16 years before being arrested. Although a large reward had been offered for any information leading to his capture, Mladić was protected and sheltered by officials in Serbia.