Ratko Mladic, the 'Butcher of Bosnia', to die in prison after UN court upholds war crimes verdict

Ratko Mladic, the so-called 'Butcher of Bosnia', will die in prison after a UN war crimes court on Tuesday upheld his life sentence for genocide.

The former Bosnian Serb military commander had appealed his 2017 guilty verdict on charges of war crimes during the 1992-1995 Bosnian war.

The ruling brings to a close the last court trial over crimes carried out in the conflict that left 100,000 dead and millions homeless.

Mladic commanded troops that carried out atrocities from ethnic cleansing in the Siege of Sarajevo to the 1995 Srebrenica massacre, in which 8,000 Muslim men and boys were killed. That remains the only episode of genocide carried out on European soil since World War Two.

A five-judge panel on TUE/yesterday rejected Mr Mladic's argument that the original trial made errors, leading to his conviction on ten offences including genocide, extermination, terror and hostage-taking among other things.

"Today is a historic day, not only for us mothers of Srebrenica but for all of the Balkans, Europe and the world," Munira Subasic, whose son and husband were killed by nationalist Serb forces that overran Srebrenica, said ahead of the hearing.

"Everywhere his army went, everywhere his boots went, he committed genocide in the villages, in the cities, in the houses...He killed everyone just because they were not Serbs."

Mr Mladic will remain in custody in The Hague while arrangements are made for his transfer to another country where he will serve his sentence. It is not yet clear which country will take the former Bosnian strongman.

The other high-profile convict of the UN court, ex-Bosnian Serb President Radovan Karadzic was transferred to Britain last month to serve a life sentence.

US President Joe Biden on Tuesday hailed the verdict as "historic", saying that “the judgment shows that those who commit horrific crimes will be held accountable.

Alice Wairimu, special adviser to the UN Secretary-General on prevention of genocide, said in the joint statement issued in Geneva that the verdict sent an important message to the western Balkans, where "genocide denial" was on the rise.

While the original ruling was largely expected to be upheld, the presiding judge, Prisca Nyambe, shocked the audience by dissenting to all of the court’s rulings to reject Mr Mladic’s appeals against his conviction, as well as his appeal against the life sentence.

“She is dissenting about the very nature of what happened. That is stunning,” Dr Iva Vukusic, a lecturer at Utrecht University who studies perpetrators of mass violence and judicial response to it, said on Twitter after the ruling.

“The evidence is, and I’ve seen it, overwhelming.”

Alphons Orie, the presiding judge in the 2017 trial, described Mr Mladic’s crimes as “among the most heinous known to humankind” while delivering his verdict.

In her dissenting opinion published in the full judgment released on Tuesday, Judge Nyambe dissects various conclusions upheld by the original trial as insufficient and circumstantial.

In her dissenting opinion about the Srebrenica massacre, Judge Nyambe argues that Mladic presented to the court evidence showing that he gave orders to his subordinates to protect the men taken prisoner in Srebrenica.

The same judge gave a dissenting opinion in the 2012 conviction of a subordinate of Mladic, arguing that evidence against him was "circumstantial."

Footage from the war showed Mladic handing out sweets to children before they and the women of Srebrenica were taken away by bus, while the men of the town were marched into a forest and executed.