THE HAGUE (Netherlands) • United Nations war crimes judges have upheld a genocide conviction and life sentence against former Bosnian Serb military commander Ratko Mladic, confirming his central role in Europe's worst atrocities since World War II.
Mladic, 78, led Bosnian Serb forces during Bosnia's 1992 to 1995 war. He was convicted in 2017 on charges of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes such as terrorising the civilian population of Bosnian capital Sarajevo during a 43-month siege, and the killing of more than 8,000 Muslim men and boys taken prisoner in the eastern town of Srebrenica in 1995.
"His name should be consigned to the list of history's most depraved and barbarous figures," chief tribunal prosecutor Serge Brammertz said after the verdict. He urged all officials in the ethnically divided region of the former Yugoslavia to condemn the former general.
Mladic, who had contested both the guilty verdict and life sentence at his trial, wore a dress shirt and black suit and stood looking at the floor as the appeals judgment was read out in court in The Hague.
The appeals chamber "dismisses Mladic appeal in its entirety... dismisses the prosecution's appeal in its entirety... affirms the sentence of life imprisonment imposed on Mladic by the trial chamber", Presiding Judge Prisca Nyambe said.
The outcome caps 25 years of trials at the ad hoc International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY), which convicted 90 people.
The ICTY is one of the predecessors of the International Criminal Court, the world's first permanent war crimes court, also seated in The Hague.
Highlighting genocide denial by Serbs, Ms Munira Subasic, whose son and husband were killed by Serb forces that overran Srebrenica, said after the ruling: "I hope that with this Mladic judgment, children in (Bosnia's Serb-run entity) Republika Srpska and children in Serbia who are living in lies will read this."
Many Serbs still regard Mladic as a hero, not a criminal.
Post-war Bosnian Serb leader Milorad Dodik, now chairing Bosnia's tripartite inter-ethnic presidency, denounced the verdict. "It's clear to us there is an attempt here to create a myth about genocide that never occurred," Mr Dodik said.
In Washington, the White House praised the work of the UN tribunals in bringing perpetrators of war crimes to justice.
"This historic judgment shows that those who commit horrific crimes will be held accountable. It also reinforces our shared resolve to prevent future atrocities from occurring anywhere in the world," it said in a statement.
REUTERS
