Ratko Mladić, the former Bosnian Serb military commander, died on Thursday at the age of 83 at the UN detention center in The Hague while serving a life sentence for genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes committed during the 1992–95 conflict in Bosnia.
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Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić criticized the UN tribunal, accusing it of “uncivilized conduct” after it refused to allow Mladić to be transferred to Serbia, where he had wished to die. According to Vučić, Belgrade has still not received information on whether the former military leader’s body will be handed over to the Serbian authorities.
“We have no information from The Hague,” Vučić told reporters. He added that Serbia would help organize a dignified funeral ceremony for Mladić if his family requested it.
“Now we see that The Hague wanted Mladić to die in prison,” the Serbian president said.
“They did not allow the general to die in Serbia, where he wanted to die. This is uncivilized conduct, unprecedented and without justification,” he added.
The death of the so-called “Butcher of Bosnia” came several days after the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) rejected a request by his family and the Serbian government to transfer him to a military hospital in Belgrade, where he would receive treatment.
The UN tribunal had stated that Mladić’s health condition was critical but stable, and that he was receiving appropriate treatment at the detention center in The Hague.
Serbian authorities are waiting to learn when The Hague will hand over the body, Serbian Justice Minister Nenad Vujic said, adding earlier that Mladić would be buried “with the military and state honors he deserves.”
According to reports in the Serbian media, Mladić had requested to be buried in a Belgrade cemetery next to his daughter Ana, who died in 1994.
Meanwhile, the tribunal has opened an investigation into the circumstances of his death. The judge appointed to lead the investigation spent around three hours at the detention center but made no statements to reporters.
Ratko Mladić was one of the three main figures in the Serbian camp, along with former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milošević and former political leader of the Bosnian Serbs Radovan Karadžić, during the period when the former Yugoslavia was engulfed by massacres following the fall of communism.
The conflict in Bosnia claimed around 100,000 lives and forced 2.2 million people to flee their homes.
In Srebrenica, Serbian forces under Ratko Mladić’s command executed 8,000 Bosnian Muslims who had taken refuge in an area that was supposed to be protected by the UN.
Vučić, who served as a minister under Slobodan Milošević’s regime in the 1990s and was once known as an ultranationalist, has in recent years presented himself as a pro-European reformer while maintaining close relations with Russia and China.
