Ratko Mladic, the ‘Butcher of Srebrenica’, has died
The former military commander of the Bosnian Serbs, who had been convicted of war crimes, had suffered several strokes
Ratko Mladic , also known as “the Butcher of Srebrenica”, a former Bosnian Serb military commander convicted of war crimes, has died in a hospital in The Hague . Mladic, aged 84, had suffered several strokes. Mladic had been nicknamed the “Butcher of Srebrenica” for his role in the 1995 Srebrenica massacre, one of the most tragic episodes of the Bosnian War.
Mladić died in a prison hospital in The Hague at the age of 84, said Lidija Pavićević, Under-Secretary of State at Serbia’s Ministry of Human Rights and Minorities, adding that she had received the information from the former commander’s son, Darko Mladić, as reported by Tanjug. Sentenced to life imprisonment in 2017, Mladić had been held in a psychiatric hospital in The Hague since 2024, where he had been bedridden for a year and a half.
In recent months, Serbia had requested his release on humanitarian grounds for health reasons, as he was terminally ill and had suffered one or two strokes, but the Mechanism for the International Criminal Tribunals in The Hague rejected the requests, stating that he was receiving the necessary (palliative) care in prison.
