{"id":763030,"date":"2026-09-07T16:20:21","date_gmt":"2026-09-07T16:20:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/763030\/"},"modified":"2026-09-07T16:20:21","modified_gmt":"2026-09-07T16:20:21","slug":"ratko-mladic-the-butcher-of-bosnia-given-heros-funeral-in-serbia-serbia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/763030\/","title":{"rendered":"Ratko Mladi\u0107, the \u2018Butcher of Bosnia\u2019, given hero\u2019s funeral in Serbia | Serbia"},"content":{"rendered":"

Thousands of mourners have gathered in Belgrade for the funeral of Ratko Mladi\u0107<\/a>, a Serbian general convicted of orchestrating the worst massacre in Europe since the second world war, and whose hero\u2019s return home has raised international alarm.<\/p>\n

Known as the \u201cButcher of Bosnia\u201d for \u200bhis role during the Balkans genocide in the 1990s, Mladi\u0107 died in prison<\/a> in late August aged 84 while serving a life sentence for war crimes and crimes against humanity.<\/p>\n

Mladi\u0107 remained a beloved figure among many Serbians, including politicians, and his coffin was flown to Serbia<\/a> on a government plane, draped in national flags and carried from the plane by uniformed soldiers. As his casket was driven from the airport, men gathered by roads and displayed banners honouring Mladi\u0107.<\/p>\n

On Monday, thousands of people gathered in front of a small church in the Serbian capital to pay their respects to Mladi\u0107. Armed forces stood guard at his casket, on top of which was laid his signature military hat as well as a sword. A display of medals lay in front.<\/p>\n

Mourners including Serbian veteran soldiers queue as they arrive to take part in a public memorial. Photograph: Oliver Bunic\/AFP\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

Outside the church, Serbian flags had been hung nearby, and a huge banner unfurled across the street read: \u201cWelcome, General, thanks be to your mother for bearing a hero.\u201d<\/p>\n

People gather to watch the funeral service outside the church. Photograph: Darko Vojinovi\u0107\/AP<\/p>\n

Scenes of military pomp have drawn condemnation from the European Union\u2019s enlargement commissioner, Marta Kos, who cancelled a forthcoming visit to Serbia on Friday. \u201cThe return of his remains to Belgrade reminds Europe of the darkest pages in our recent history,\u201d she said on social media.<\/p>\n

Serbia has been negotiating EU accession since 2014, but the process has stalled in recent years under the populist Serbian president, Aleksandar Vu\u010di\u0107.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe glorification surrounding [Mladi\u0107\u2019s] death is incompatible with the values on which the EU path is built,\u201d said Kos. \u201cThat path requires confronting the past, genuine reconciliation and respecting the victims of war crimes. The values that underpin our common future are not negotiable.\u201d<\/p>\n

Thousands of people have gathered at the small church of St Luke in Belgrade. Photograph: Uros Arsic\/Reuters<\/p>\n

An EU spokesperson repeated the warning on Monday. \u201cAny glorification of war criminals, genocide denial and revisionism contradict the most fundamental European values and have no place in the EU or in EU candidate countries,\u201d he said in a statement.<\/p>\n

Mladi\u0107 was one of the main architects of the policy of ethnic cleansing during the Bosnian war, which killed more than 100,000 people and displaced more than 2 million.<\/p>\n

Serbian military personnel pay their respects at Mladi\u0107\u2019s coffin. Photograph: Marko Drobnjakovi\u0107\/AP<\/p>\n

Key among his crimes was the 1,460-day siege of the Bosnian capital, Sarajevo, where the civilian population was subjected to daily shelling and sniper attacks from Serb nationalist forces, and more than 10,000 people were killed.<\/p>\n

The three-year conflict culminated in the 1995 killing of at least 8,000 Bosniak Muslims<\/a> in the town of Srebrenica, a crime that shocked governments in Europe that had spent decades working to prevent mass killings after the mid-century horrors when Nazi Germany killed 6 million Jews.<\/p>\n

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In Srebrenica, Mladi\u0107\u2019s forces were filmed handing out sweets to children and promising their safe passage before thousands of Bosnian men and boys were rounded up, killed, and their bodies bulldozed into mass graves. \u201cWe give this town to the Serb people as a gift,\u201d Mladi\u0107 said at the time in filmed comments.<\/p>\n

Gen Ratko Mladi\u0107 in Sarajevo, April 1993. Photograph: Chris Helgren\/Reuters<\/p>\n

The killings have been pointed to as an international failure, especially as Srebrenica had been designated a \u201csafe haven\u201d<\/a> under the protection of the UN, a global body created immediately after the second world war specifically to help prevent such bloody future global conflicts.<\/p>\n

Mladi\u0107 was arrested in Serbia in 2011 after 16 years as a fugitive, and sentenced by a UN tribunal in the Netherlands to life imprisonment in 2017.<\/p>\n

The goal of the Serbian leadership, which Mladi\u0107 was tasked with implementing \u2013 as determined \u2060by the UN\u2019s international criminal tribunal for \u2060the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) \u2013 was the forcible expulsion of Bosnian Muslims, Croats and other non-Serbs to clear Bosnian land for the creation of a \u201cGreater Serbia\u201d.<\/p>\n

While in detention, Mladi\u0107 had been in ill health after having a series of strokes.<\/p>\n

The Balkans war started after the June 1991 breakup of Yugoslavia, when Slovenia and Croatia declared independence. Bosnian Serbs quickly took control of more than two-thirds of Bosnia and launched the siege of Sarajevo. After three years of bloodshed, the Dayton agreement was signed in Dayton, Ohio, ending the war and creating the independent state of Bosnia and Herzegovina<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Thousands of mourners have gathered in Belgrade for the funeral of Ratko Mladi\u0107, a Serbian general convicted of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":763031,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,50,51,47,52,48],"class_list":["post-763030","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\/763030","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=763030"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/763030\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/763031"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=763030"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=763030"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=763030"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}