THE HAGUE, Netherlands\u00a0\u2014\u00a0A U.N. court asked for a health assessment on Tuesday for the military chief known as the \u201cButcher of Bosnia,\u201d following a request by his attorneys to release the 84-year old on humanitarian grounds.<\/p>\n
Ratko Mladic was sentenced to life in prison in 2017 for orchestrating genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes in the Balkan nation\u2019s 1992-95 war.<\/p>\n
Mladic is in a \u201cstate of advanced, irreversible medical decline,\u201d and should be released, his defense teams said in their request. <\/p>\n
The former general had to be taken to the emergency room earlier this month for an unspecified health incident, according to the order. <\/p>\n
Judge Graciela Gatti Santana ordered an independent medical assessment to be made by May 1, requesting information on Mladic\u2019s \u201ccurrent health condition\u201d and \u201cthe adequacy of his care\u201d at the detention facility where he has been held for 15 years.<\/p>\n
The conflict in the former Yugoslavia erupted after the country\u2019s breakup in the early 1990s, with the worst crimes taking place in Bosnia. More than 100,000 people died and millions lost their homes before a peace agreement was signed in 1995.<\/p>\n
Mladic went into hiding for around 10 years before his arrest in Serbia in May 2011.<\/p>\n
The pugnacious Bosnian Serb leader was ejected from a courtroom at the United Nations\u2019 Yugoslav war crimes tribunal during the reading of his verdict, after yelling at judges: \u201cEverything you said is pure lies. Shame on you!\u201d<\/p>\n
Mladic was the last major figure to face justice from the conflict that ended more than a quarter-century ago. His appeal is being heard by the International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals \u2014 a court that deals with remaining cases from the now-closed U.N. tribunals for Rwanda and the Balkan wars.<\/p>\n
Judges denied a request for early release in 2025, writing that his \u201cconditions of detention continue to be in full compliance with the principles of humanity and respect for human dignity.\u201d The court also denied a request from Mladic to travel to Serbia in November to attend a funeral.<\/p>\n
Quell writes for the Associated Press. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"THE HAGUE, Netherlands\u00a0\u2014\u00a0A U.N. court asked for a health assessment on Tuesday for the military chief known as…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6677,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[5946,2879,32,5949,5944,5948,5947,5950,5941,5943,5951,5026,42,5942,5945,1065],"class_list":["post-6676","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-the-hague","tag-bosnia","tag-conflict","tag-crime","tag-detention-facility","tag-humanity","tag-judge","tag-may","tag-medical-evaluation","tag-ratko-mladic","tag-request","tag-respect","tag-serbia","tag-the-hague","tag-u-n-court","tag-war-crime","tag-year"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6676","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6676"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6676\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6677"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6676"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6676"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6676"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}