One of the most feared commanders of the Bosnian War, Ratko Mladic, has died in prison after years of fighting convictions over genocide and other crimes committed during the conflict. Serbian state broadcaster RTS reported on Thursday that Mladic, who was in his 80s, had suffered several strokes in recent months.
Mladic became internationally known as the “Butcher of Bosnia” because of his role in the 1992-1995 war and the 1995 Srebrenica massacre, where about 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys were killed.
He was serving a life sentence in The Hague after being found guilty in 2017 of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity. His conviction and sentence were upheld on appeal in 2021.
Srebrenica was at the centre of his case. Bosnian Serb forces under his command rounded up Muslim men and boys after taking control of the UN-protected enclave, while women and children were separated and transported away.
Thousands of the men and boys were then executed. Their bodies were placed in mass graves, some of which were later disturbed as attempts were made to conceal evidence of the killings.
The massacre was declared genocide by the tribunal and became the worst single atrocity in Europe since World War II.
Mladic also commanded forces during the long siege of Sarajevo, where civilians were targeted by snipers and artillery fire. Thousands of people were killed during more than three years of attacks on the Bosnian capital.
Despite the evidence presented against him, Mladic never accepted the court’s findings. He maintained that he had taken up arms to protect Serbs and repeatedly portrayed himself as a soldier carrying out his duty.
“Fate put me in a position to defend my country that you Western powers had devastated with the help of the Vatican and the Western mafia,” he told judges during his appeal hearing in 2020.
Throughout the proceedings, he attacked the tribunal and rejected claims that he had orchestrated genocide or other crimes.
He described himself as “a simple man” who had been placed in a position where he had to defend his people.
His public image remained deeply divided. While victims and survivors viewed him as a symbol of the violence inflicted on Bosnian Muslims, many Serbs continued to regard him as a wartime hero.
Bosnian Serb veteran Ljubo Tomovic defended Mladic before his final appeal verdict.
“He only defended his people,” Tomovic told AFP. “To convict him would be a disgrace and a sin,” he said.
Republika Srpska leader Milorad Dodik also defended the former commander after his life sentence was confirmed.
“I think that this verdict propelled general Mladic straight into a legend,” Dodik said.
“Serbs know that without him our people would have suffered much more.”
For the families of those killed at Srebrenica, however, Mladic's legacy remains tied to the mass killings.
“Wherever their army came, wherever their boot stepped in, they committed genocide,” said Munira Subasic, president of one of the Mothers of Srebrenica associations.
Former UN rights chief Zeid Ra’ad al Hussein was equally harsh after Mladic’s conviction, describing him as “the epitome of evil”.
The tribunal said the crimes for which Mladic was convicted were “amongst the most heinous known to humankind”.
Mladic was born in Kalinovik, eastern Bosnia, during World War II. His exact year of birth remained disputed, with most accounts giving 1942 while Mladic told the tribunal that he was born in 1943.
His father was killed near the end of World War II while fighting for Marshal Tito, the Yugoslav leader who later held the multi-ethnic country together.
A military career followed for Mladic. He travelled to Belgrade for army training in the early 1960s, became an officer at 22 and eventually rose to become commander of the Bosnian Serb forces.
Former Yugoslav army spokesman Ljubodrag Stojadinovic later described him as “narcissistic, conceited, vain and arrogant”.
Years of war also changed the way some of his former allies viewed him. Former Montenegrin president Momir Bulatovic said Mladic had become detached from reality after spending years in the conflict.
“I respected General Mladic as a soldier and a man,” Bulatovic told a 1990s BBC documentary.
“But after three years of war, he'd lost contact with reality.”
Mladic was indicted in 1995 and removed from his military post, but he remained in hiding for 16 years.
He initially received protection and lived comfortably with support from elements of the Serbian military. That protection weakened after Slobodan Milosevic lost power in 2000.
Mladic was finally arrested in May 2011 at his cousin’s country home in northern Serbia and taken to The Hague.
His family was also touched by tragedy. His daughter Ana died by suicide in 1994 at 23. Some reports linked her death to the shame surrounding her father's wartime actions, although the family rejected that explanation.
Before his transfer to the tribunal, Mladic asked to visit her grave.
His trial concluded with the 2017 guilty verdict and life sentence. Four years later, the appeal court confirmed the punishment.
The court found him responsible for the Srebrenica genocide and a broader campaign of ethnic cleansing intended to remove Muslims and Bosnians from areas claimed by Serb forces.
As his health deteriorated, his defence team asked for his release on humanitarian grounds, arguing that his continued imprisonment was no longer justified.
“Given the nature of the terminal and uncurable medical condition of Mr. Mladic and his short-term life expectancy, continued detention serves no legitimate purpose, and approaches inhuman treatment and punishment,” his defence team argued.
The request was rejected.
Mladic leaves behind a deeply contested legacy from a war that killed about 100,000 people and displaced 2.2 million. To his supporters, he remained the commander who defended Serbs; to survivors and victims’ families, he was the face of a military campaign that brought mass killings, forced displacement and suffering across Bosnia.