The former Bosnian Serb military commander, sentenced to life for the summary execution of more than 8,000 Bosniaks in July 1995 and the years-long siege of Sarajevo, died at 84. He spent 15 years as a fugitive before his arrest in Serbia in 2011.
Former Bosnian Serb military leader and convicted war criminal Ratko Mladić has died in a prison hospital in The Hague at the age of 84, according to Serbian state broadcaster RTS.
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Considered the most infamous war criminal in the Balkans, Mladić was dubbed the "Butcher of Bosnia" for his role in the 1995 Srebrenica genocide during the Bosnian War.
He was sentenced to life by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) for turning large swathes of Bosnia into a bloodbath during the war in the 1990s.
Among other war crimes, Mladić was convicted of genocide for the summary executions of over 8,000 Bosniaks in Srebrenica in July 1995 committed by the Bosnian Serb army under his command — an atrocity considered the worst since the end of World War II.
After Bosnia declared independence from Yugoslavia in early 1992 following in the footsteps of Slovenia and Croatia, Bosnian Serb leaders, backed by the government in Belgrade led by Slobodan Milošević, created their own parastate.
The ensuing military offensive led by Mladić — a career Yugoslav army officer who also took part in the fighting in neighbouring Croatia — aimed at ethnically cleansing as much of the country’s territory as possible of the other two ethnic groups, Bosniaks and Croats.
Mladić also played a crucial role in the years-long siege of Sarajevo, the longest siege of a capital city in modern warfare.
Positioned on the surrounding hills, Bosnian Serb units under his command went on a campaign of sustained shelling and sniper attacks on civilians from early 1992 until the end of the war in late 1995.
The siege of the Bosnian capital formally ended in February 1996, followed by the reintegration of Bosnian Serb-held neighbourhoods — where Mladić's units conducted campaigns of persecution, terror and forced displacement.
After the ICTY issued the first indictment against him in July 1995, Mladić stayed Commander of the Main Staff of the Bosnian Serb army until he was relieved of his duty in November 1996. From then on, he was a fugitive from justice.
He spent 15 years hiding or being hidden by contacts in the intelligence service and military until he was finally apprehended at the home of a relative in Serbia in 2011.
In recent years, Mladić has been in increasingly poor health after suffering several strokes, according to his family members.