Convicted War Criminal Ratko Mladic Buried in Belgrade with Military Honors
Convicted Bosnian Serb war criminal Ratko Mladic was buried with military honors in Belgrade despite EU warnings, drawing thousands of mourners and highlighting deep nationalist divisions.
The former commander of the Bosnian Serb forces, Ratko Mladic, who died while serving a life sentence for war crimes, was laid to rest on Monday. The funeral took place despite warnings from the European Union against granting public honors to a man convicted of the first genocide on the European continent since World War II.
Thousands of mourners gathered early at the small Serbian Orthodox Church of St. Luke in Belgrade to pay their respects to Mladic, who is still viewed as a hero by many Serbs. His military officer's cap and sword rested on the coffin, which was escorted by men in uniform.
Pro-government media in Serbia reported that Mladic would receive full military honors, with the head of the Serbian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Porfirije, officiating the funeral service. Milan Dobric, a mourner who traveled from Kosovo to attend, told the Associated Press (AP) that Mladic "was a man who gave everything in his life for the Serbian people," adding that he was glad to see people paying their respects.
Mladic died at the age of 84 on August 27 in The Hague, Netherlands, while serving a life sentence for genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity committed by his troops during the 1992-1995 Bosnian War. While the funeral arrangements were officially made by Mladic's family, the Serbian government dispatched a plane last week to bring his remains to Belgrade, where soldiers carried his coffin wrapped in the national flag. A military memorial ceremony was also held on Saturday at an official Serbian military site.
Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic, a former ultranationalist who supported Serbia's expansionist policies during the war, described the funeral as an "emotional outburst" that "has nothing to do with whether Vucic permitted something or not."
A Career of Mass Murder
Mladic was arrested in Serbia on May 26, 2011, in a joint operation involving Interpol and the Serbian security agency. He was subsequently convicted by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in The Hague. Following his arrest, then-Serbian President Boris Tadic declared it "the end of a dark chapter in Serbia's history," and the arrest was seen as a crucial step toward Serbia's integration into the European Union.
The Serbian general commanded the forces that carried out the 1995 Srebrenica massacre, during which more than 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys were systematically executed—the largest mass murder in Europe since the Holocaust. Mladic ordered prisoners to be loaded onto buses and trucks, separated into small groups, and shot in abandoned warehouses or open fields. The general had notoriously reassured the prisoners beforehand that no harm would come to them.
Mladic also commanded the siege of Sarajevo, which resulted in the deaths of more than 11,000 people, including over 1,500 children. His forces held positions on the hills surrounding the city, targeting Bosnian civilians with artillery and sniper fire. The dark legacy of the siege resurfaced in the news last year following reports that Italian citizens had visited Mladic's forces and paid money to shoot and kill civilians.
