FORMER BOSNIAN SERB commander Ratko Mladic has been sentenced to life in prison after being found guilty of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity at a UN tribunal in The Hague.
The 74-year-old was chief of staff of Bosnian Serb forces from 1992 until 1996.
Known as the “Butcher of Bosnia”, Mladic faced 11 charges, including genocide and crimes against humanity, at the tribunal.
He was cleared of one count of genocide, but found guilty of all other charges. Following the verdict Mladic’s lawyer said they will appeal the conviction.
The separate counts related to “ethnic cleansing” in Bosnia, attacks on civilians in Sarajevo, the massacre of Muslim men and boys at Srebrenica and the taking of UN personnel as hostages.
More than 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys were killed at Srebrenica in 1995 and 10,000 people died during the siege of Sarajevo.
UN human rights chief Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein said the verdict was a “momentous victory for justice”.
“Mladic is the epitome of evil, and the prosecution of Mladic is the epitome of what international justice is all about,” Zeid said in a statement.
Today’s verdict is a warning to the perpetrators of such crimes that they will not escape justice, no matter how powerful they may be nor how long it may take.
Mladic was earlier dragged out of his judgement hearing at The Hague after he started shouting at the judges that they were lying.
Presiding judge Alphons Orie ordered him removed from the courtroom just after refusing a defence request to halt the proceedings due to Mladic’s high blood pressure.
“They are lying, you are lying. I don’t feel good,” Mladic shouted, before being hustled out of the courtroom by two UN security guards.
With reporting from AFP
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
have your say