Elham Asaad Buaras
A UN war crimes court has rejected a request by Ratko Mladić, the former Bosnian Serb military leader convicted over the Srebrenica genocide, to be released early on health grounds.
Mladić, who was sentenced to life in 2017 for genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity during the Bosnian war, had applied for early release in June, claiming he had only months to live.
In a ruling published on July 30, Judge Graciela Gatti Santana of the International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals (IRMCT) in The Hague said the 83-year-old “continues to receive very comprehensive and compassionate care, as amply supported by medical reports.”
She added that the “compelling humanitarian circumstances” cited by his defence team were “not substantiated”.
Mladić, dubbed the “Butcher of Bosnia”, led Bosnian Serb forces during the 1992–95 conflict and was found responsible for atrocities including the 43-month siege of Sarajevo and the 1995 Srebrenica massacre, in which around 8,000 Bosniak Muslim men and boys were murdered. It remains the worst atrocity on European soil since the Second World War.
The court found that his continued incarceration was not “inhuman or degrading”
Mladić had been on the run for 16 years before being arrested in Serbia in 2011. His legal team had sought provisional release on health grounds in 2017.
His son, Darko Mladić, has frequently appeared in Serbian media to discuss his father’s health, describing him as seriously ill. Despite international condemnation, Mladić remains a hero to many Serbian nationalists.
(Photo credit: UN International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia)
