Convicted war criminal Ratko Mladić dies at UN detention facility

Ratko Mladić, the former Bosnian Serb military commander convicted of genocide and crimes against humanity, has died at the age of 84 at a United Nations detention facility in The Hague, according to Reuters, citing local media reports.

No details about the circumstances of his death were immediately available.

Mladić commanded the Bosnian Serb army during the 1992–1995 Bosnian War, including during the three-year siege of Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia and Herzegovina. About 11,000 people were killed during the siege.

In July 1995, Bosnian Serb forces under his command killed about 8,000 Bosniaks in Srebrenica over five days. The massacre is regarded as the largest mass killing in Europe since World War II.

Mladić was arrested in Serbia in May 2011 after years on the run. In 2017, the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague sentenced him to life imprisonment after finding him guilty of genocide, crimes against humanity and other war crimes.

Mladić rejected the charges and maintained his innocence, saying he had “merely defended his people.”

He suffered several strokes and, since 2024, has been receiving treatment and palliative care at the detention facility’s hospital in The Hague. Repeated requests for his temporary release to receive medical treatment in Serbia were rejected.

By Tamilla Hasanova