BELGRADE, Serbia (AP) — Ratko Mladic, the bullish Bosnian Serb general whose forces rained shells and snipers’ bullets on Sarajevo and carried out the worst massacre in Europe since World War II, died while serving a life sentence for his crimes, the Serbian state RTS television and the official Bosnian Serb television reported. He was 84.
The reports said that Mladic died in a UN prison hospital in The Hague, Netherlands. A family member of Mladic, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the situation, confirmed the reports to AP and said Mladic’s son, Darko Mladic, was on the way to The Hague.
UN court officials told the AP in a statement that they could not immediately confirm Mladic’s death.
The UN tribunal for war crimes committed during the wars in Yugoslavia in the 1990s sentenced Mladic to life in prison in 2017 in what was considered a key step toward bringing justice to the victims. He had been in custody since 2011 after many years on the run.
The ruthless, blue-eyed former communist officer-turned nationalist warlord was one of the most notorious figures of the conflict that left more than 100,000 people dead and over 1 million homeless. He commanded his troops to “scorch the brains” of the Bosnian Muslims and boasted of being a “Serbian God.”
