Lawyers acting for convicted Bosnian Serb war criminal Ratko Mladic are awaiting a decision by a UN court on their bid to release him from jail in The Hague on the grounds he is near the end of his life.
Mladic, 84, was jailed for life in 2017 for genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity during the wars in the former Yugoslavia between 1992 and 1995. The sentence for the man known as the "Butcher of Bosnia" was upheld on appeal in 2021.
In a detailed submission to the court on Friday, his lawyers said Mladic had already been bedbound or in a wheelchair for a long time.
But they said he had then suffered a suspected stroke during a call with his son that left him almost unable to speak.
They said two doctors had assessed his condition as serious and the "risk of imminent death is high", and the lawyers have called for his immediate provisional or conditional release to a hospital or hospice where the Serbian language is spoken.
