{"id":751549,"date":"2026-08-27T15:58:09","date_gmt":"2026-08-27T15:58:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/751549\/"},"modified":"2026-08-27T15:58:09","modified_gmt":"2026-08-27T15:58:09","slug":"convicted-bosnian-serb-war-criminal-mladic-dies-aged-84","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/751549\/","title":{"rendered":"Convicted Bosnian Serb war criminal Mladi\u0107 dies aged 84"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">In May, a UN court at The Hague rejected a bid for his release from jail as he was nearing the end of his life. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The judge agreed his situation was &#8220;dire&#8221; but ruled that he was receiving &#8220;comprehensive and compassionate treatment&#8221; in prison.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Mladi\u0107 &#8211; who never recognised the UN court &#8211; had been held at The Hague detention facility since 2011.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Mladi\u0107 commanded Bosnian Serb forces in the 1990s against the Bosnian Croat and Bosniak (Bosnian Muslim) armies.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">During the war his troops committed &#8220;ethnic cleansing&#8221; in Bosnia-Herzegovina, besieged the main city of Sarajevo with the deaths of more than 10,000 people, and carried out the massacre of 8,000 men and boys at Srebrenica.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Hasan Hasanovi\u0107 , a Srebrenica survivor who lost his twin brother and father in the massacre, told the BBC World Service&#8217;s Newshour programme that Mladi\u0107&#8217;s death &#8220;does not bring closure because the people who were killed in Srebrenica cannot come back&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;His death is just a biological necessity, and it doesn&#8217;t bring to an end the political project and military project that created that legacy of genocide. And we now live with the consequences of a divided country, genocide denial,&#8221; said Hasanovi\u0107, who now works at the Srebrenica memorial centre.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">However, Bosnian Serb separatist leader Milorad Dodik told Reuters news agency that Mladi\u0107 &#8220;was respected by Serbian people. As a commander he stood to defend Serbs.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">In Serbia&#8217;s capital Belgrade, some local residents also praised him.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;I genuinely believe he protected the Serbian people, because after all, that was his duty,&#8221; a man called Milan was quoted as saying by Reuters.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Another man, Vasilije, said: &#8220;It&#8217;s a massive shame, it really is. Personally, I think it&#8217;s a total injustice that he was even thrown in The Hague.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In May, a UN court at The Hague rejected a bid for his release from jail as he&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":751550,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,50,51,47,52,48],"class_list":["post-751549","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/751549","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=751549"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/751549\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/751550"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=751549"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=751549"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=751549"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}