Cars pass under a pedestrian bridge with a banner on it reading: "Eternal glory, General! (former Bosnian Serb wartime general Ratko Mladic)" in Belgrade Thursday. [Darko Vojinovic/AP]
The European Union is closely watching how membership candidate Serbia will handle the funeral of the former Bosnian Serb army commander Ratko Mladic, who was convicted of genocide by a UN court but remains a hero to many Serbs, an EU official said on Friday.
The EU’s Enlargement Commissioner Marta Kos said that the next few days “will be a very important test” after Mladic’s remains were flown to Serbia on a government plane Thursday from The Hague, Netherlands, following his death in a hospital there last week.
Mladic was sentenced in 2017 to life imprisonment for orchestrating the massacre of more than 8,000 Muslims in Srebrenica in 1995; the yearslong siege of Bosnian capital of Sarajevo during the 1992-95 conflict; and other war crimes, including setting up concentration camps for detained non-Serb civilians and enemy soldiers.
Upon landing in Belgrade, Mladic’s coffin was wrapped in the national flag and Serbian army soldiers carried his body from the plane to a van for transport to the military hospital. Serbia’s Justice Minister Nenad Vujic was on the plane with Mladic’s family members while groups of nationalist admirers lit flares as the convoy with the coffin passed under escort.
