War criminal Rakto Mladić given hero’s funeral in Serbia

The ‘Butcher of Bosnia’ Rakto Mladić, who was convicted of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity, was given a hero’s funeral in Belgrade on Monday.

Thousands gathered to pay their respects to the 84-year-old, who died last week in The Hague, Netherlands, where he was serving a life sentence.

His coffin was flown to Belgrade on a government plane, where it was draped in the national flag.

Mladic was the military commander of Bosnian Serb forces in the 1990s, who fought against the Bosnian Croat and Bosniak armies.

Under his leadership, Bosnian Serb troops massacred 8,000 Muslim men and boys at Srebrenica in 1995.

They also enacted the four-year siege of Sarajevo in which 10,000 people died.

But he remained a beloved figure among many Serbians and some politicians.

The European Union ’s Enlargement Commissioner Marta Kos has cancelled her planned visit to the country in light of the funeral.

Kos said on X that “the glorification surrounding his death is incompatible with the values on which the EU path is built.”

Serbia has been a candidate for EU membership since 2012, but plans have stalled under President Aleksandar Vučić, due to democratic backsliding and the country’s ties with Russia.

• Subscribe to ITV News on YouTube: http://bit.ly/2lOHmNj
• Get breaking news and more stories at http://www.itv.com/news

Follow ITV News on TikTok https://www.tiktok.com/@itvnews?lang=en
Follow ITV News on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/itvnews/
Follow ITV News on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/itvnews/
Follow ITV News on X: https://twitter.com/itvnews

2 comments

  2. NATO acted against Serbia because it was a european (white) nationalist movement. If it wasn't for that, they'd have done nothing. Also because Madeleine Albright hated Serbs and tried to profit from the war.

Comments are closed.