Lawyers for convicted war criminal Ratko Mladić, the Bosnian Serb military commander who oversaw the siege of Sarajevo and Srebrenica massacre in the 1990s, say he has suffered a serious medical incident and is approaching the end of his life.
In a submission to a UN court on Friday, Mladić’s legal team argued the 84-year-old, who is currently serving a life sentence at The Hague, should be granted a provisional or early release because he is in a state of “advanced, irreversible medical decline” following a suspected stroke during a phone call with his son.
The incident left him unable to speak and having difficulty swallowing, according to the submission.
“Given Mr Mladić’s current condition and the probability [of] a cardiovascular stroke being the cause of the medical incident, the prison hospital wing is insufficiently equipped to provide the standard of care required,” the lawyers argue, citing a report from a Serbian-speaking doctor.
“This makes the continued detention of Mr Mladić under those conditions improper, and justifies our request for release to [a redacted location] where such care can be provided.”
Women in Srebrenica watch a live broadcast of Ratko Mladić’s 2021 appeal verdict. (AP Photo: Darko Bandic)
Judge Graciela Gatti Santana, who is hearing the submission, previously oversaw the appeals process for Radovan Karadžić, the Bosnian Serb political leader also convicted of war crimes.
She has requested an independent medical review of Mladić’s condition, as well as the extent to which his life expectancy can be accurately assessed.
Mladić’s lawyers say the request should be expedited given the “seriousness and urgency of the situation”.
The ‘Butcher of Bosnia’
Mladić was convicted in 2017 of committing war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, a court established by the United Nations in 1993 to prosecute atrocities committed in the aftermath of the break-up of Yugoslavia.
His conviction followed a lengthy trial and a 15-year period on the run, during which he is suspected to have been sheltered by the Serbian military despite immense international pressure for his capture.
Mladić’s crimes were committed during the Bosnian War, when he led Bosnian Serb forces in an ethnically charged campaign against Bosnian Croat and Bosnian Muslim (Bosniak) fighters.
Ratko Mladić commanded Bosnian Serb forces during the four-year Siege of Sarajevo. (Reuters: Chris Helgren)
During this time he oversaw the four-year siege of Sarajevo — the longest siege of a capital city in modern history — during which time the civilian population was starved, continuously shelled and subjected to sniper fire, resulting in the deaths of more than 13,000 people.
He was also responsible for the Srebrenica massacre, a sustained and methodical attack on a town in eastern Bosnia previously designated a UN-protected zone, which saw more than 8,000 Bosniak men and boys killed and dumped in mass graves, and thousands of women and girls raped and assaulted.
Mladić’s crimes led to him being dubbed the “Butcher of Bosnia”, a label he often shared with Karadžić.
Ratko Mladić speaks to soldiers under his command near the Bosnian town of Cazin in 1994. (AP Photo: Radivoje Pavicic)
Rights and victims’ groups oppose early release
The prospect of Mladić receiving humanitarian considerations has sparked fierce condemnation from human rights activists and victims’ groups in what is now Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Emir Suljagić, director of the Srebrenica Memorial Center, last week said it was reprehensible that Mladić had a better chance of being buried with full rites before thousands of his victims “are even granted the dignity of a name, let alone peace”.
“Think about that. Sit with it. Then talk to me about justice, about the responsibility to protect, about closure, about moral compasses,” he said.
Nataša Kandić, the Serbian founder of the Belgrade-based Humanitarian Law Center, similarly decried humanitarian allowances being made for a convicted war criminal when no such humanity was shown to his victims.
How a Sydney detective cornered the ‘Butcher of Bosnia’
“There is no humanity for the mothers whose sons were made to disappear by someone convicted of genocide, no expression of compassion from Serbia, no assurance that they will be able to bury their children before their own final days,” she wrote on X.
However, Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić has spoken out in support of Mladić being granted a humanitarian release, saying he cannot “understand why someone is not allowed to spend their last days outside their prison cell”.
“I was informed by [Serbia’s justice minister] that [Mladić’s] condition is very serious. He was unable to sit up, was taken to the hospital in a lying position and was only able to respond briefly,” Mr Vučić told reporters in Belgrade.
Mladić still enjoys support among Serbian nationalists, including at one point Vučić, who once told Serbia’s parliament that any house belonging to a Vučić would be a place Mladić would be protected and sheltered from arrest.
While he has since adopted a more nuanced position, he is often accused of tacitly supporting Mladić, and in 2024 he opposed the establishment of an international day of reflection on the Srebrenica massacre on the grounds that it should “equally mourn the victims on all sides”.