The body of former Bosnian Serb army commander Ratko Mladic, who died last week while serving a life sentence for genocide and other atrocities during the war in Bosnia, will be flown to Serbia on Thursday, according to Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic. Vucic informed reporters that the U.N. court in The Hague, Netherlands, has released the remains following Mladic's death in a hospital at the detention facility. The court did not immediately provide a comment on the release.
Mladic’s family is expected to announce funeral plans in the coming days. President Vucic predicted that a large number of admirers might attend the service, noting that many Serbs still consider Mladic a hero despite his conviction for genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity by the U.N. tribunal. Addressing the potential for unrest, Vucic stated, “It will be hard to secure and guarantee security to everybody.” He added that Serbia’s police and the state security agency estimate that “tens of thousands” could attend the funeral. “It will be a demanding job for our (security) services and we will use everything at our disposal to provide security,” Vucic said.
Mladic was sentenced in 2017 for his role in orchestrating the 1995 massacre of more than 8,000 Muslims in Srebrenica, as well as the yearslong siege of the Bosnian capital, Sarajevo, during the 1992-95 conflict. His conviction also covered other war crimes, including the establishment of concentration camps for detained non-Serb civilians and enemy soldiers. Following his death last Thursday, thousands of Serbs held vigils and marches in his honor, drawing condemnation in a region that remains ethnically divided more than three decades after the war, which began when Bosnian Serbs seized territory to form their own state.
Families of Mladic's victims have stated that his conviction by the U.N. court provided at least some justice for the deaths of their loved ones. Serbia, which supported the Bosnian Serbs during the war, is formally seeking entry into the European Union but remains defiant regarding its wartime role. Last week, Vucic accused the West and The Hague tribunal of blaming only Serbs for the crimes and failing to provide justice for Serb victims. He also criticized the court for what he described as “uncivilized” behavior, specifically for not releasing Mladic on humanitarian grounds to die at home. The Srebrenica massacre, Europe’s first acknowledged genocide after World War II, occurred after the U.N. “safe haven” was overrun by Serbs who forced men and boys to strip, killed them, and buried them in mass graves. Mladic was one of the most notorious figures of the Bosnian war, which resulted in more than 100,000 deaths and left over 1 million people homeless before ending in 1995 with a U.S.-brokered peace agreement.
