THE EXPLORERS: Ratko Mladic (left) and Radovan Karadzic have both been sentenced to life for crimes against humanity during the civil war in the former Yugoslavia. Foto: RANKO CUKOVIC / X00339
––
Former Bosnian Serb general Ratko Mladic (79) has been sentenced to life in prison in the appeal case against him, which he also became in the first trial in 2017.
–
Some hot summer days in 1995, in the northern Bosnian village of Srebrenica, the Bosnian Serb forces under Ratko Mladic’s command gathered around 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men and ten-year-old boys.
Between 11 and 22 July, Mladic soldiers carried out what is the worst massacre on European soil since World War II.
—-Mourning: A Bosnian woman looks at the list of names of at least 8,000 male and ten-year-old boys who were massacred in Srebrenica 26 years ago. Photo: Darko Bandic / AP
––
Ethnic cleansing was part of the civil war that followed the break-up of the state of Yugoslavia in 1990. The massacre in Srebrenica will remain a stain on UN history. UN soldiers who were to control that Srebrenica was a so-called safe zone for the civilian population, failed to intervene when Mladic ordered his forces to mow down the thousands of defenseless people.
26 years after the horrific genocide in Srebrenica, Ratko Mladic had a secret hope of bringing the case back, but the International Criminal Court in The Hague upheld the verdict, rejecting Mladic’s appeal.
—-“The Butcher”: After ten years on the run, Ratko Mladic was captured, overtaken by a bloody past. Now he has lost the appeal. The 78-year-old has been sentenced to life in prison. Photo: Jerry Lampen / POOL / ANP POOL
––
The infamous Bosnian Serb, known as the “Butcher of Bosnia” during the Civil War, is serving a life sentence for genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Ratko Mladic was on the run and hid in villages in northern Serbia for a ten-year period, before being arrested in 2011.
Together with the Bosnian Serb political leader, Radovan Karadzic, Mladic became the very symbol of the atrocities, ethnic cleansing and massacres of the former Yugoslavia.
The one too many charismatic Radovan Karadzic was arrested in the summer of 2008 on a bus out of Belgrade, disguised as an alternative guru.
He was the political leader of the Bosnian Serbs, and according to the prosecution, the driving force behind both the 44-month siege of Sarajevo and not least the Srbrenica massacre. The worst war crime since World War II killed 8,000 Bosnian Muslims in July 1995.
Karadžić has always declared his innocence. He received the life sentence without preferring a mine.
–
