The incident left him unable to speak and having difficulty swallowing, according to the submission.<\/p>\n
“Given Mr Mladi\u0107’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.<\/p>\n
“This makes the continued detention of Mr Mladi\u0107 under those conditions improper, and justifies our request for release to [a redacted location] where such care can be provided.”<\/p>\n
Women in Srebrenica watch a live broadcast of Ratko Mladi\u0107’s 2021 appeal verdict. (AP Photo: Darko Bandic)<\/p>\n
Judge Graciela Gatti Santana, who is hearing the submission, previously oversaw the appeals process for Radovan Karad\u017ei\u0107, the Bosnian Serb political leader also convicted of war crimes.<\/p>\n
She has requested an independent medical review of Mladi\u0107’s condition, as well as the extent to which his life expectancy can be accurately assessed.<\/p>\n
Mladi\u0107’s lawyers say the request should be expedited given the “seriousness and urgency of the situation”.<\/p>\n
The ‘Butcher of Bosnia’<\/p>\n
Mladi\u0107 was convicted in 2017 of committing war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia<\/a>, a court established by the United Nations in 1993 to prosecute atrocities committed in the aftermath of the break-up of Yugoslavia.<\/p>\n His conviction<\/a> 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.<\/p>\n Mladi\u0107’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.<\/p>\n Ratko Mladi\u0107 commanded Bosnian Serb forces during the four-year Siege of Sarajevo. (Reuters: Chris Helgren)<\/p>\n During this time he oversaw the four-year siege of Sarajevo \u2014 the longest siege of a capital city in modern history \u2014 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.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n Mladi\u0107’s crimes led to him being dubbed the “Butcher of Bosnia”, a label he often shared with Karad\u017ei\u0107.<\/p>\n Ratko Mladi\u0107 speaks to soldiers under his command near the Bosnian town of Cazin in 1994. (AP Photo: Radivoje Pavicic)<\/p>\n Rights and victims’ groups oppose early release<\/p>\n The prospect of Mladi\u0107 receiving humanitarian considerations has sparked fierce condemnation from human rights activists and victims’ groups in what is now Bosnia and Herzegovina.<\/p>\n Emir Suljagi\u0107, director of the Srebrenica Memorial Center, last week said it was reprehensible that Mladi\u0107 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”.<\/p>\n “Think about that. Sit with it. Then talk to me about justice, about the responsibility to protect, about closure, about moral compasses,” he said.<\/p>\n Nata\u0161a Kandi\u0107, 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.<\/p>\n How a Sydney detective cornered the ‘Butcher of Bosnia’<\/a><\/p>\n Bob Reid was told he was wasting his time hunting for Bosnian war criminal Ratko Mladi\u0107. A cop who cut his teeth chasing criminals in NSW, he showed why he’s regarded as one of the world’s best detectives.<\/p>\n “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<\/a>.<\/p>\n However, Serbian President Aleksandar Vu\u010di\u0107 has spoken out in support of Mladi\u0107 being granted a humanitarian release, saying he cannot “understand why someone is not allowed to spend their last days outside their prison cell”.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
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