BELGRADE – The body of convicted war criminal Ratko Mladić was flown from Netherlands to Serbia by the Serbian government plane on 3 September. The coffin was accompanied on the flight by Mladić’s son and a granddaughter, as well as by Serbian Justice Minister Nenad Vujić. It was draped in the flags of Serbia and Republika Srpska and carried off the aircraft by Serbian army soldiers.
The coffin was placed into a waiting vehicle and driven under a police escort to the Military Medical Academy in Belgrade for an autopsy. According to the media reports, the commemoration service for Ratko Mladić is scheduled for 5 September at the House of the Army, whereas the burial will take place on 7 September, at Topčider Cemetery in Belgrade.
Convicted war criminal Ratko Mladić died at age 84 at the United Nations detention unit in The Hague while serving a life sentence. He was top military general for the Bosnian Serbs during the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina from 1992 to 1995. Opponents and victims called him the “Butcher of Bosnia”.
His army surrounded the city of Sarajevo for nearly four years, killing more than 10,000 civilians with shelling and snipers. In addition, he directed the mass killing of around 8,000 Bosniak men and boys in July 1995 in the town of Srebrenica (Srebrenica genocide).
Mladić escaped justice and hid in Serbia for 16 years after the war. Police found and arrested him in a small Serbian village called Lazarevo in 2011.
A UN tribunal in The Hague found him guilty of genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity in 2017. The court sentenced him to life in prison.
Judges rejected his final appeal and kept his life sentence in 2021. Ratko Mladić spent final years in the UN detention unit and died after a long illness.
Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić said today that on Monday, at a time of the funeral of Ratko Mladić, he will meet with Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev, whose visit was scheduled several months ago.
“I have an official visit of the President of Uzbekistan all day on Monday and Tuesday, scheduled four months ago”, Vučić told reporters during his visit to Palic, when asked if he would attend the funeral, it was reported by N1.
He added that he talked to the family of Ratko Mladić, and that their choice was what they would do and how to organize the funeral.
“Did I do everything necessary and possible to make it go through in a dignified way, in a serious and responsible way? I did just that. That is all I can say to you”, Vučić noted.
Legally speaking, since Mladić was not officially stripped of his general rank either by the Serbian military or the authorities of Republika Srpska, he can be buried with military honours, as it had been done with Nebojša Pavković, a Serbian army general, who died last October and was convicted of war crimes by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia.
