Ratko Mladic, the so-called "butcher of Bosnia" who has reportedly died at the age of either 83 or 84, had insisted he was chosen by "fate" to defend the Serb people from a Western onslaught.

Mladic oversaw the killing of some 8,000 Muslim men and boys in a UN-designated “safe area” in Srebenica in 1995.

Wartime commander was serving life sentence for Srebrenica massacre and siege of Sarajevo; reports say he died in a UN prison hospital in The Hague