A commemoration for former Bosnian Serb army commander and convicted war criminal Ratko Mladić opened on Saturday at the House of the Serbian Army in Belgrade as Serbia faces mounting European pressure over what Brussels has described as his glorification — an accusation Serbia rejects.
Mladić died last week while serving a life sentence for genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity during the war in Bosnia. His remains were flown to Serbia from The Hague on a government plane on Thursday.
Serbian army soldiers carried the coffin with Mladić’s body wrapped in the national flag from the plane to an unmarked maroon van, which was then given a police escort down Belgrade’s main motorway.
Serbia's Justice Minister Nenad Vujić — who initially announced that Serbia would give Mladić "all the military and state honours" — was on the plane along with Mladić’s son Darko and two of his former army assistants.
The body was transferred to the military hospital in Belgrade for an autopsy before his coffin is displayed at a church near the Košutnjak cemetery on Monday morning, where he will be buried later in the day, his family announced on Friday.
